Description: Asset cash flow modeling and asset assumptions are growing in importance with PBR especially considering the low interest rate environment. The Academy’s Life Practice Council and Life Valuation Committee have formed a Low Interest Rate Asset Adequacy Testing Task Force which has conducted an industry survey to raise awareness and summarize the actuarial best practices for financial reporting actuaries practicing in today’s very low interest rate environment. As the scrutiny on the asset side ratchets up, actuaries must consider how best to develop the asset assumptions as well as model the reinvestment and disinvestment strategies. Coherent assumptions and modeling practices across modeling exercises are expected while respecting the purpose of each calculation.

Description: 1996 Valuation Actuary Symposium. This session about asset modeling discussed securities with options and derivatives, corporate government debt, mortgage-backed securities, collateralized mortgage obligations, real estate equities, and investment and disinvestment strategies.

Description: This article suggests ways for small insurance companies to obtain modeling information on more intricate assets, such as collateralized mortgage obligations [CMO], at a low cost.

Description: In this paper, a general multivariate duration analysis is introduced that does not depend on a mathematical formulation of the way in which a yield curve moves. A discussion of the paper follows. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1991, Vol. 43.

Description: Presents a way to study C-1 risk 'default risk' for fixed-income assets in the context of asset/liability management. This approach utilizes cash flow projections and Monte Carlo sampling.

Description: Case Study is used to see how effectively an approach based on combining products can reduce C-3 'interest rate' risk.

Description: 1993 SOA Annual Meeting, New York. Insurance regulators commissioned a task force to develop cash-flow variability measurement standards. This session presented the recommendations of that task force and the relationship to cash-flow testing. Topics included: 1. The regulatory need and how the process was approached. 2. The types of CMO variability that the standards attempt to address. 3. A description of the scenario selection process that's used in this model. 4. The prepayment assumptions and the method to be used to collect prepayment data. 5. The relationship to cash-flow testing. 6. The regulators' reactions.

Description: Interest rate modeling is discussed in this paper with special emphasis on the long and short rate model of Brennan and Schwartz. Comment is made on an unexpected aspect of the solution of the resulting partial differential equation. Also, an analysis is made of the predictive power of the term structure of interest rates. From the Actuarial Research Clearing House 1991 Vol. 1.

Description: 1996 Valuation Actuary Symposium. This session discusses the purposes of building an asset model, the resource requirements, model validation, model granularity, understanding spreads, and model interest rates.

Description: This paper discusses extending the general nonparallel shift approach to duration analysis developed previously and explores the immunization model within the multivariate context. A discussion of the paper follows. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1991, Vol. 43.