Description: A summary of a preliminary report from the Committee on Valuation and Related Problems, on guidelines for quantifying balance sheet items in an insurance enterprise.

Description: A discussion of the efforts to implement straight through processing and standardization of the HIPAA form for long term care claims data.

Description: Book review of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen.

Description: State regulators' review of predominant LTC Risks after review of year-end AG51 reports.

Description: An overview of the formation of the Committee of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, initiated by the Joint Ad Hoc Committee on Government Statistics, in response to the need for statistical advisory committees to government agencies to promote better data collection and dissemination, contracting, forms clearance, planning, coordination, monitoring, staffing, and strengthening of agency functions.

Description: Many top-performing businesses aren’t just risk aware, but rather risk intelligent. Such a posture helps prepare companies for a major event and can demonstrate to a regulator or auditor that an appropriately strong control framework is in place. Better still, companies gain real strategic value from a “risk adjusted” understanding not only of their threats and vulnerabilities, but also the upside opportunities associated with various risks. It starts with having both qualitative and quantitative information to identify, assess and manage risks. Strategic risk management, at its core, is about creating value by increasing transparency and accountability, and quality of information. More than a mere compliance exercise, effective risk management enables more informed strategic decision making, increased accountability and transparency, a greater likelihood of organizational success, and – ultimately – competitive advantage, as borne out by many studies that correlate risk management and financial results.

Description: How can actuaries tailor their work to a target audience? This article explores success stories and key considerations when preparing work for others.

Description: Book review of The Fundamentals of Pension Mathematics by Barnet E. Barin. Mr. Griffin supports the text as a valuable contribution in particular his analysis of gains/losses by source during the transition to utilizing computers for pension valuation.

Description: This article is about how entrepreneur independent business owners can solve their day-to-day frustrations and problems with a simple and useful process for setting goals and building a plan to meet those goals.

Description: The article is Part 1 of two articles that provide a case study for the development of a profitability and risk dashboard. The sample dashboard provides distilled information regarding actual to expected (A/E) ratios for key risks, agent quality scores and customer value scores. The dashboard would also provide the value of new business written, surplus strain, debit balances, and expected losses on debit balances at different levels, down to the agent level. A product mix index is provided, together with visual comparisons of key metrics to the company's business plan. The Part 2 article will add information to the dashboard regarding risk margins, target capital, and company value.