Description: Feature article describing how the Society of Actuaries (SOA) partnered with the Association of Home Office Underwriters (AHOU) and the Canadian Institute of Underwriters to conduct research focused on new medical tests and markers that may have significance and relevance to the life insurance markets to get a sense of where underwriting practices are going in the future.

Description: Information regarding the Economic Scenario Generator to be used when calculating Principle-based reserves and implementing VM20.

Description: Initiated by the Financial Reporting Section, this paper explores rising interest rates. Following this path, the paper will look at implications of interest rate changes for the life insurance industry, current stress testing practices, and how a risk manager can proactively prepare for an uncertain future. A paper published in 2014 focused on why rates could stay low, and some aspects of this paper are similar (e.g., description of insurance products). This paper also uses a sample model office to help practitioners look at their own exposures. It includes typical interest-sensitive insurance products and how they might perform across various scenarios, as well as a survey to establish current practices for how insurers are testing interest rate risk currently.

Description: Summary of research titled Understanding VM-20 Results.

Description: Article discussing an alternative method to calculate the PBA deterministic reserve called the “Direct Iteration” method.

Description: 1998 Valuation Actuary Symposium. This session about strengthening reserves based on cash-flow testing provided some practical solutions to reserve-strengthening issues using reinsurance and a look at the issue from a small company perspective.

Description: Full version of Small Talk Newsletter, June 2002, Issue No. 18.

Description: The SOA Research Institute engaged Milliman to perform a study examining life insurer practices on accelerated underwriting and how COVID-19 has impacted them. This effort included a separate outreach to actuaries working for twelve different state insurance departments. At the time of this report, three responses to our regulatory survey had been received. Therefore, the results of the three-question survey are discussed in broad terms, rather than using numerical measurements.

Description: This report examines options for analyzing periodic changes in VM-20 reserve amounts.

Description: Results of a company practice survey is presented. Among the areas to be addressed include the structure of accelerated underwriting programs, how programs are monitored, how accelerated underwritten business is performing relative to expectations, and how companies are considering accelerated underwriting cohorts in the context of VM-20 assumption setting.