Description: Life and annuity markets around the world have seen increasingly complex investment-combined products, including universal life, fixed indexed annuities, variable annuities with a wide variety of guaranteed benefits and indexed variable annuities. Insurance companies are facing unprecedented exposure to financial risks in addition to traditional mortality and longevity risks. The risk assessment and modeling for such complex designs by conventional methods often focus heavily on their market competitiveness and profitability. However, there seems to be a lack of quantifiable and systematic approaches to assess investment risks associated with investment combined products. The objective of the proposed work is to develop a framework for quantifying and analyzing various forms of contractual designs and showcase different techniques to assess the trade-off between competitive contractual designs and their practical implications regarding the difficulty of risk management.

Description: Joint Risk Management Section chairperson's corner, June 2023

Description: Letter from the chairperson of the section recapping 2020 accomplishments and stating 2021 goals.

Description: This paper applies the research in Prospect Theory of Kahneman and Tversky to explain why sales of annuities lag sales of life insurance products. The author theorizes that life insurance is easier to sell because customers perceive themselves to be in the domain of losses, while potential annuity customers perceive themselves to be in the domain of gains. Kahneman and Tversky showed us that people are mostly risk averse in the domain of gains and risk seeking in the domain of losses. Purchase of an annuity or life product is a risky investment. Customers will find it easier to take the risk in the life insurance domain of losses than the annuity domain of gains. The author then proposes a hybrid life annuity product that might address both mortality and longevity risk in one product that would allow both products to be more competitive than stand-alone products.

Description: it discusses the framework and modeling of the market consistent valuation of fixed indexed annuity, against the backdrop of the convergence of accounting standards and internal risk management.

Description: The Joint Risk Management Section's chairperson explains the Joint Risk Management Section Council members plans for the coming year, with a heavy focus on research and continuing education.

Description: An update on the activities of the JRMS Council.

Description: A recounting of all the accomplishments the Joint Risk Management Section had in 2021 crediting those responsible for their successful completion.

Description: An update on the activities of the JRMS

Description: The article is authored by the chair of the Joint Risk Management Section and provides an update of recent changes relevant to members of the council, as well as interested non-members.