Description: ongoing discussion of the proper interest rate to use in discounting liability cash flows to reflect credit risk of the insurer in a fair value accounting system

Description: This article discusses the Own Risk and Solvency Assessment ORSA Guideline that is being developed by the NAIC Group Solvency Issues working group as part of the Solvency Modernization Initatitve SMI. It looks at the purpose of the ORSA, the three sections of the NAIC ORSA and issues with current U.S. ORSA draft.

Description: Developments at the NAIC, IAIS, and Federal Reserve regarding life insurance regulation. PBR is not included.

Description: Risk adjustment is needed under IFRS 17 to reflect the compensation that a company requires for bearing the uncertainty about the amount and timing of the cash flows that arises from non-financial risk. Companies are also required to disclose the method and confidence level used for the calculation of the RA. However, IFRS 17 doesn’t specify a method and a confidence level, nor does it provide a list of specific risks that are considered to be non-financial risk. Companies need to define them based on their own preferences or existing practices. This article will introduce available approaches and discuss the confidence level approach with potential consideration stemming from industry preferences and illustrative examples.

Description: A review of a webcast on Sarbanes-Oxley including a brief update on Sarbanes requirements, including some practical aspects of the Sarbanes “life cycle,” including living with Sarbanes beyond implementation.

Description: Feature article discussing quantitative impact studies, QIS5, on Solvency II.

Description: Performance measurement is not the primary purpose of either GAAP or statutory accounting. This article discusses alternative methods of reporting used by life insurance companies to better measure financial performance.

Description: Discussion of what is included within the scope of Enterprise Risk Management and why it is of significance to the jobs of financial reporting actuaries

Description: The selection of the economic capital calculation approach becomes more of a modeling decision. Now let us pause here and think about the arbitrage-free assumption at the beginning. At any time, there can be only one price on any asset. If the company considers the price calculated above as the fair price for its products, then it must hold true that the same price has to be arrived at if the company uses a real-world pricing approach instead of a risk-neutral approach. This gives us a very good basis to calibrate the appro- priate economic capital.

Description: Feature article discussing the IASB’s and FASB’s introduction of the use of other comprehensive income (OCI) to report certain changes in the value of insurance contracts.