Description: This article discusses some 'standard' methods of foreign expansions. Strategic decisions for expansion in foreign countries require more than qualitative discussions about foreign expansion. It requires hard numbers on the benefits of such strategic expansion plans and is illustrated here with the example of MetLife's 2002 purchase of Ahisa [Aseguradora Hidalgo]. With that purchase, more than 70% of the Mexican insurance market is in the hand of foreign companies.

Description: This paper describes a major refinement in methods of allocating general account investment income among lines of business, termed segmentation. A detailed description of the segmentation plan recently adopted by the authors' company and its implications is described. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1983, Vol. 35.

Description: The Society of Actuaries’ Committee on Post-Retirement Needs and Risks (CPRNR) commissioned Linda Koco to write this guide that employers can use when considering advice options for a company retirement plan. The guide includes information about the nature and timing of decisions, ongoing decisions after retirement, and advice considerations. The guide is intended to be unbiased toward any particular approach or organization’s product. This guide does not provide advice for specific situations and should not be construed as doing so. It is an information tool for considerations related to advice. The guide is not intended to provide legal guidance or recommendations.

Description: The recent financial crisis created incentives to review investment practices and see what was done well and what could be improved for the future. Looking inward at insurer investment practices, background trend information was generated and a survey developed for insurers to share their thoughts. The research continued with conversations in private and public forums, where initial conclusions were expanded.

Description: This paper on bancassurance in India discusses some of the salient developments of banks in India, how the lack of coordination between bank regulation and insurance regulation created confusion in the development of bancassurance, the main problems facing banks in India, and some of the long term drivers of bancassurance in India. From Actuarial Research Clearing House, 2006.

Description: In May, 2001, the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) and the Society of Actuaries (SOA) jointly issued a request for proposals on the research topic “Modeling of Economic Series Coordinated with Interest Rate Scenarios.” The objectives of this request were to develop a research relationship with selected persons to investigate this topic; produce a literature review of work previously done in the area of economic scenario modeling; determine appropriate data sources and methodologies to enhance economic modeling efforts relevant to the actuarial profession; and produce a working model of economic series, coordinated with interest rates, that could be made public and used by actuaries via the CAS / SOA websites to project future economic scenarios. Categories of economic series to be modeled included interest rates, equity price levels, inflation rates, unemployment rates, and real estate price levels.