Description: Discussion of solvency problems and the actuary's role in addressing them in the life insurance industry.

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: The author explores reasons why blocks of business may become legacy blocks and discusses ways to decrease the likelihood of legacy blocks in the future.

Description: Documents the error in the Smoker/Nonsmoker CSO Tables accepted by the NAIC, and the expected approval of the NAIC to accept use of both the erroneous and the correct mortality rates for all regulatory purposes.

Description: This article provides a formulaic method of comparing unit reserves on different valuation bases. This enables a duration-by-duration comparison of the components of the calculation on two different valuation bases. This can be done ignoring taxes or assuming taxes are recognized in calculating the expected return on capital in pricing.

Description: This article describes the effect of different valuation interest rates and levels of surplus on income tax paid by life insurance companies via Phase 1 of the Federal Income Tax Act of 1959.

Description: Addresses U.K. actuarial discussion regarding “maturity guarantees”, i.e., the reserves necessary to support promises contained in investment-linked contracts.

Description: This article discusses the calculation of mean reserves in certain cases where terminal reserves are negative and proposes a minimum reserve formula which produces adequate mean reserves in all cases.

Description: August Zilmer 1831-1893, a Prussian actuary best known for the development of preliminary term valuation, also made some observations on life insurance accounting that seem quite contemporary. Zillmer also wrote the first comprehensive German actuarial mathematics text in almost a century.

Description: This article discusses the charge for the new SOA/COVARA AIDS Task Force. This new task force will examine and report on the principles and techniques for the financial recognition of AIDS for insurance companies, recognizing both statutory and GAAP accounting.