Description: The SOA Investment Section is holding a three-part Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) Investment Considerations Webcast Series in September and October, which will cover the challenges and implementation. This series is suited for actuaries, consultants, plan sponsors and asset managers that work with insurance companies or pension funds and want to learn more about the latest in ESG. The increasing focus on climate change and recent social movements witnessed globally brought many institutional investors to further think about and perhaps reevaluate, the way they integrate ESG factors into their investment decisions. This new reality raises many questions: what's next for ESG in the institutional space? What will be the challenges? How will institutional investors go beyond the basics? What are current and future ESG needs and who will meet them? This will be the first of three educational sessions aimed at taking the conversation on ESG integration to the next level. During this webcast, you will hear from a panel of various types of asset owners who will share their perspectives, challenges and learnings in the journey to implementing their ESG views, including in the context of a pandemic. The discussion will start broadly, and narrow down to some of the most pressing topics today with the focus on climate change resilience and adaptation of assets.

Description: There is no silver bullet to improving retirement income outcomes for retirees. However, a combination of changes can be of significant value in addressing this overlooked issue. Although QLACs on the surface have potential value, they are not nearly as efficient as they could be. So far, employer plans have provided limited options for retirement income solutions. IRAs may not cost effectively serve the best interest of retirees. Employer plans should be encouraged to become retirement income providers and alternative approaches should be considered. The current prohibition on allowing plans to modify benefit payouts based on mortality experience should be reconsidered to allow for innovative plan income designs. Improvements to the deaccumulation stage of the retiree nest egg are challenging yet necessary.

Description: Join us to explore a variety of ways that COVID-19 has impacted retirement and how those impacts may extend into the future. Material from a series of research reports published through the SOA's Aging and Retirement Strategic Research Program will be presented as well as other relevant work. This content was originally presented at the 2021 SOA ImpACT Conference.

Description: "Demographic components of Future Potential Old-Age Support Ratios – Kirill Andreev, Ph.D., United Nations, Population Division, New York, Mila Andreeva, KAMA Consulting Effect of internal Migration on the Health of Taiwan’s Elderly People – Jack C. Yue, Ph.D., – National Chengchi University, Department of Statistics, Taipei, TaiwanPopulation Aging and Canada’s Social Contract: Covid-19 Catalyst for Change – Douglas Andrews, FSA, FCIA, Ph.D., Lori J. Curtis, Ph.D., – University of Waterloo"

Description: "Establishing Methods for Annual Updates to Cohort Life Expectancies – R. Dale Hall, FSA, CERA, MAAAManaging Director of Research, Society of Actuaries Research Institute Longevity Disparity across Communities in the United States – Lijia Guo, Ph.D., ASA, MAAA , US Government Accountability Office, Applied Research and Methods Division, Washington DC"

Description: Our understanding of the biology of aging is increasing rapidly, creating insight into how and why any organism is aging. Some of the mechanisms by which the process of aging occurs in mammals are sufficiently well understood that clinical trials targeting them in humans to improve later life health and longevity are now being undertaken. Translating results seen in mammals to humans has the potential to increase life expectancy far beyond what we have seen historically. Come explore the current state and outlook of research.

Description: Both the SOA and AARP will showcase their recent research projects highlighting the impact of marginalization on aging and retirement. Learn how being a member of a marginalized group changes your outcomes as well as your perspective on aging and retirement.

Description: "Living to 100 in the time of COVID-19: A Study of Late –Life Mortality Trajectories, Leonid A. Gavrilov, Ph.D., Natalia S. Gavrilova, Ph.D., Academic Research Centers, NORC at the University of Chicago Swedish Mortality Does Not Decelerate in Recent Cohorts, or Does it? – Roland Rau, Ph. D., Professor, University of Rostock & Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany; Marcus Ebeling, Ph.D., Karin Modig, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Anders Ahlbom, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm Sweden; Kai Kaufhold, Aktuar DAV, Ad Res Advanced Reinsurance Services GmbH, Cologne, Germany; Annika Ziegler, Lukas Stake, Hochschule Koblenz & Ad Res, Germany"

Description: Mortality Model Selection and Combination in RAlternative approaches for selecting mortality models and forecasting mortality have been proposed. The usual practice is to base mortality forecasts on a single mortality model selected using in-sample goodness-of-fit measures. However, cross-validation and other alternative out-of-sample measures are increasingly being used in model selection, and model combination methods are becoming a common alternative to using a single mortality model. Such methods combine predictions from multiple mortality models to reduce model choice uncertainty and improve forecast accuracy. Explore techniques to select and combine mortality models using the freely available open source R package CoMoMo (https://github.com/kessysalvatory/CoMoMo), which extends the widely used R package StMoMo (https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=StMoMo). We will use data for the USA and other countries to discuss and demonstrate four different model combination approaches including simple model averaging, Bayesian model averaging, model confidence set, and stacked regression ensembles.

Description: How do unpredictable short-term mortality shocks due to the Coronavirus impact assumptions for pension valuations? What impact does this have in reviewing a plan's experience and can an actuary justify making adjustments? What portions of the population were most impacted by COVID-19? Find out all this and more during this discussion. This webcast will cover: Current research relating to COVID-19 mortality statistics The MP-2020 improvement scale and the MIM-2021 framework Perspectives on emerging longevity trends