Description: In this article, the author discusses the capital shortfall an insurer faces because of the longevity risk on immediate annuities.

Description: Current risk management approaches for variable annuity business are not working very well in today's market turmoil.

Description: Competition for space in distribution channels has resulted in a proliferation of exotic options embedded in variable annuity products. This article discusses how this has created a need which can be addressed, in part, by hedging variable annuity guarantees with long-dated equity derivatives.

Description: Life and annuity markets around the world have seen increasingly complex investment-combined products, including universal life, fixed indexed annuities, variable annuities with a wide variety of guaranteed benefits and indexed variable annuities. Insurance companies are facing unprecedented exposure to financial risks in addition to traditional mortality and longevity risks. The risk assessment and modeling for such complex designs by conventional methods often focus heavily on their market competitiveness and profitability. However, there seems to be a lack of quantifiable and systematic approaches to assess investment risks associated with investment combined products. The objective of the proposed work is to develop a framework for quantifying and analyzing various forms of contractual designs and showcase different techniques to assess the trade-off between competitive contractual designs and their practical implications regarding the difficulty of risk management.

Description: Description of the increased gamma of the liabilities of a portfolio of variable annuities. Discussion of the sensitivity of gamma due to changes in policyholder behavior.

Description: Summary of recent surveys to life actuaries regarding assumptions surrounding policyholder behavior in the tail for universal life with secondary guarantees and minimum guarantees on variable annuities. This information is intended to examine and ultimately give guidance to actuaries on how to set policyholder assumptions in extreme scenarios.

Description: This article provides an excerpt of the results of a survey on policyholder behavior in the tail with respect to variable annuity guaranteed benefits. GMIB is specifically addressed.

Description: This article departs from the usual GMWB pricing approach by assuming that the policyholder is always smart enough to act in his/her own best interest.

Description: Life and annuity markets around the world have seen increasingly complex investment-combined products, including universal life, fixed indexed annuities, variable annuities with a wide variety of guaranteed benefits and indexed variable annuities. Insurance companies are facing unprecedented exposure to financial risks in addition to traditional mortality and longevity risks. The risk assessment and modeling for such complex designs by conventional methods often focus heavily on their market competitiveness and profitability. However, there seems to be a lack of quantifiable and systematic approaches to assess investment risks associated with investment combined products. The objective of the proposed work is to develop a framework for quantifying and analyzing various forms of contractual designs and showcase different techniques to assess the trade-off between competitive contractual designs and their practical implications regarding the difficulty of risk management.

Description: This article discusses the problems created by the options in unit-linked annuities in the UK, variable annuities in the US and segregated fund contracts in Canada. Methodology for valuing the guaranteed annuity option is presented.