Description: This report is prepared to provide a comprehensive overview of the professional financial advice industry including the strengths and weaknesses of currently available approaches to providing (and receiving) financial advice, particularly as part of an employer-sponsored employee benefit. Financial advice is broadly defined to include traditional methods as well as alternative methods to providing personalized guidance. This report is also designed to provide guidance for retirement plan sponsors in making decisions regarding the role, scope, and delivery models of financial advice to plan participants. As appropriate, the report differentiates between investment advice, which includes investment management and asset accumulation decisions, and retirement advice, which includes retirement preparation, security, and planning decisions, and is built upon a thorough understanding of an individual’s personal values and goals. Rather than provide an actionable list for plan sponsors to implement, this report is designed to raise awareness of the issues that are worth considering.

Description: The objective of this report is to provide benchmarking information that will help companies address the needs of internal stakeholders in cost-effectively conducting and implementing an ORSA process. In order to obtain this benchmarking information, a cross-disciplinary survey was conducted to find out what insurance companies understand and expect from an ORSA, the effort required to complete an ORSA, and the benefits from doing so. This survey was undertaken on a global basis, with participants that included life, property and casualty (P&C), often referred to as "non-life" or "general" insurers in territories such as Europe, and health insurance companies in North America (the United States and Canada), Europe, and Asia.

Description: This paper is intended to be a resource for actuaries and other professionals interested in learning more about longevity risk. It summarizes the results of the literature review by discussing observed trends and outlook on mortality, development of retirement markets, ways to mitigate risk, summary of products with risk exposure and quantification and management of the risk.

Description: Survey results for 2008 produced by the Policyholder Behavior in the Tail Risk Management Section Working Group in which insurers were asked about assumptions used with respect to policyholder behavior in universal life policies with secondary guarantees.

Description: This report identifies and reviews relevant literature with respect to the valuation of private placement debt [PPD] and real estate, develops a case study examining the effectiveness of an actuarial valuation methods for PPD, and proposes guidelines regarding the valuation of illiquid assets.

Description: The Society of Actuaries’ Pension Section has completed a research effort exploring the value of longevity pooling and its implications.

Description: This SOA report provides an overview and analysis of the mortality models, theories and trends contained in the papers presented at the past four international Living to 100 symposia.

Description: This SOA report describes the components of margin for calculating capitation rates in a Medicaid context along with practical issues that MCOs may face.

Description: The Society of Actuaries’ Pension Section is pleased to make available a research report addressing the potential consequences of accumulating education debt for retirement security.

Description: This report is a collection of sources that deal with how do scientists know and what could actuaries do regarding climate change and environmental risks.