Description: This article deals with enterprise risk management and how the techniques contained within the discipline can help prevent unforeseen large mistakes in strategy, product design, and product management

Description: Article is a detailed discussion of the Risk Management and Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (RMORSA) Model Act that was recently approved by the NAIC and is being adopted by legislatures across the country.

Description: An exploration of risk management challenges in the Middle East, including historical overcapitalization, inadequate data and governance issues.

Description: The impact of Fed’s QE program on the financial markets has been enormous and profound. The tapering and the eventual removal of the stimulus will be equally enormous and profound, and may be disruptive. To adapt to the potential regime change in near future, some investment strategies have been proposed: (1) shorten duration to focus on the short end of the yield curve and create laddered portfolios; (2) reduce allocation to high yield bonds; (3) rotate out interest rate sensitive sectors such as utilities; and (4) use interest rate derivatives to hedge the interest rate uncertainties lying ahead. On the other hand, contrarians who see the QE program continuing may stay the course and consider (1) adding duration, (2) gaining exposure to high yield bonds, and (3) increasing allocation to utilities and telecoms.

Description: Discussion of the movement toward principle-based reserves for LTC insurance.

Description: background history of the insurance industry and the role of actuaries within it, followed by the current environment and anticipated future environment.

Description: Most reasonable risk mitigation strategies provide benefit in some circumstances, but come at a cost that adversely affects results in other scenarios. A research paper by the authors considers the view of multiple stakeholders to answer this question, resulting in a process they call Trifurcation.

Description: discussion of risk management and proper pricing of life insurance products.

Description: Recent advances in mortality modeling have enabled applicant-specific quantification of mortality risk in life insurance applicants using laboratory and physical measurements. Relative to more conventional underwriting, this approach identifies a small population of significantly under-priced policy and a much larger, cross-subsidizing group whose risk is presently overestimated. Applicants placed in the highest percentile by this scoring methodology are more than 10X as likely to die in a given period as their demographic peers, and represent approximately 5% of short-term claims. Implications for product design are substantial in both the short- and long-term, as the possibilities for adverse selection grow, and the opportunity for fully individualized pricing raises the more distant prospect of products with as many rate classes as applicants.

Description: Is Risk/Return a sound tool for decision-making? No. It is not consistent, not objective, distorts decision and degrades governance. Why? What shall we do then?