Description: After a summary of FASB decisions in their GAAP Targeted Improvements project, this article describes several issues that will need to be resolved either by the board or in actuarial practice and argues for seeking solutions that provide meaningful results without overly complicating valuation processes.

Description: Analysis of possible mathematical relationships between hospital quality and hospital billed or allowed charges or other measures, using quality data as defined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services along with the Hospital Quality Alliance for their Hospital Quality Initiative.

Description: This article contains excerpts from the first three articles that were released through the strategic initiative - Commercial Health Care: What’s Next?

Description: Abstract: The U.K. Pension Protection Fund (PPF) was established in April 2005 to protect the pensions of members of U.K. private sector defined benefit pension schemes that have insufficient assets and whose corporate sponsor fails. The Fund takes over the pension scheme assets and assumes responsibility for the payment of compensation to the former members of the scheme. The PPF is funded by a levy on the population of eligible schemes. To improve its ERM framework, the PPF has undertaken a reverse stress testing exercise. This analysis provided the organization with new insights into its risk profile, the scenarios leading to the PPF’s potential “failure,” and interactions between these scenarios. This paper discusses the principles and objectives of reverse stress testing in the special case of the PPF and then illustrates the application of complex system science techniques for the purpose of reverse stress testing.

Description: The U.K. Pension Protection Fund (PPF) was established in April 2005 to protect the pensions of members of U.K. private sector defined benefit pension schemes that have insufficient assets and whose corporate sponsor fails. The Fund takes over the pension scheme assets and assumes responsibility for the payment of compensation to the former members of the scheme. The PPF is funded by a levy on the population of eligible schemes. To improve its ERM framework, the PPF has undertaken a reverse stress testing exercise. This analysis provided the organization with new insights into its risk profile, the scenarios leading to the PPF’s potential “failure,” and interactions between these scenarios. This paper discusses the principles and objectives of reverse stress testing in the special case of the PPF and then illustrates the application of complex system science techniques for the purpose of reverse stress testing.

Description: We develop a model based on causal mortality in order to better understand inequalities in life expectancy across socioeconomic circumstances.

Description: We develop a model based on causal mortality in order to better understand inequalities in life expectancy across socioeconomic circumstances.

Description: From a panel discussion session at the 2002 Valuation Actuary Symposium, held in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, September 19–20, 2002 Panelists discuss the embedded value process, including discount rate, uses for embedded value reporting and implementation issues. Also included a discussion of fair value accounting methodology.

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.

Description: The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that the long-term trends in the rate of company expansion affect policyholder costs and estimate the amount of the impact. Followed by several discussion papers submitted