Description: View the 2020 Living to 100 Abstracts by Session PDF.

Description: The article shared results from a survey conducted in May of best-estimate VA assumptions as of year-end 2018. Specifically, the discussion focused on lapse, utilization and separate account return assumptions. The results show that a considerable range of practice across assumptions used by the industry for variable annuities. There is a propensity to use complex assumptions to better match the underlying complexity in the products with the behavior expected from policyholders in a dynamic and volatile economic environment.

Description: Read the December 2019 issue of The Financial Reporter published by the Financial Reporting Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.

Description: Report summarizing the results of the 2019 PBITT UL with Secondary Guarantees Survey.

Description: View the Exam ERM Intro Study Note.

Description: A literature review report that looks at research on how artificial intelligence is used in actuarial work.

Description: Results of 2019 survey to their subgroup members.

Description: This report provides methodological tools for an insurer to better understand the potential losses incurred by autonomous vehicles in the context of rollover risk.

Description: This session will discuss strategy and tactics for becoming good stewards of consumer/customer data. Topics will include various techniques, such as anonymization, pseudonymization, tokenization, and the merging of disparate, de-identified data sources.

Description: Business success in the future depends on assumptions we make today. However, we operate in a dynamic environment and cannot know with certainty what lies ahead. Addressing the challenge requires a synergy between data science, expert judgement, and decision making to spot changing drivers of key risks and respond with appropriate business action. We will be presenting development of such an "ecosystem" technically enabled by Natural Language Processing to monitor and detect signals from news streams. NLP is of increasing importance for insurance companies. Additional application examples are available in session 23.

Description: Python is the leading programming language for data science. Python programming is one skill that actuaries should acquire. It facilitates analytic work, and the available visualization tools help to communicate ideas. In this article, I use a traditional actuarial problem, mortality modeling, as an example.

Description: Read the November 2019 issue of Actuary of the Future, published by the Actuary of the Future Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.

Description: Investment risk management has become a core competency of insurance companies, and much has been discussed on this topic. This session examines the current investment risk management practices such as product line specific hedging and macro hedging, with a focus on what still remains to be addressed—whether the tradeoff of addition risk management is worthwhile.

Description: The SOA is pleased to make available a report updating the 2012 risk assessment performed by Porteous et al. The report also provided an economic capital analysis for a stylized US plan with the same member profile and the USS provisions modified to reflect a typical US DB plan.

Description: In this session, we will explore investment solutions that aim to maintain the long-term viability of a pension plan, with considerations on hedging interest rates, credit, inflation, longevity and other risks, while accounting for the many particularities associated with underlying liabilities and their corresponding ramifications.

Description: Article describes how to write effective model documentation

Description: Read the November 2019 issue of The Modeling Platform, published by the Modeling Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.

Description: This article is the first installment of a three-part series that aims to provide an overview of ESGs and will focus on the general motivation for stochastic modeling, its advantages and its limitations. Future articles will further break down the key factors of ESGs and the application of these factors to better understand the Academy Interest Rate Generator (AIRG).

Description: Representing a large indexed annuity writer, the speakers will discuss the growth and evolution of the market for index annuity products. Moreover, the challenges that growth has introduced and how those challenges are being met. While much of the market consists of simple, accumulation-oriented S&P 500 based strategies with 0% return floors, a significant portion of industry sales come from more complex products with highly customized index strategies and other features, such as living benefit guarantees. Attendees will gain a broad understanding of the indexed annuity market, product and features, operational difficulties in risk management arising from product design, and how actuarial and hedge professionals are managing these issues.

Description: The NAIC has adopted revised VM-21 and AG43 for variable annuities, effective Jan. 1, 2020. The panel of presenters will provide background and an overview of the revisions, discuss detailed aspects of the new CTE Amount Standard Projection and prescribed assumptions, as well as discuss implementation considerations and the implications to hedging. In addition, the panelists will share progress on VM-23, principle-based reserves for non-variable annuities.

Description: Representing a large indexed annuity writer, the speakers will discuss the growth and evolution of the market for index annuity products. Moreover, the challenges that growth has introduced and how those challenges are being met. While much of the market consists of simple, accumulation-oriented S&P 500 based strategies with 0% return floors, a significant portion of industry sales come from more complex products with highly customized index strategies and other features, such as living benefit guarantees. Attendees will gain a broad understanding of the indexed annuity market, product and features, operational difficulties in risk management arising from product design, and how actuarial and hedge professionals are managing these issues.

Description: A brief overview of recent AIT research papers in summarized format.

Description: In this session, a company will share its experience on managing risks underlying the equity-linked insurance guarantees and what lessons were learned over these years as it adapted its strategies to suit the current market environment.

Description: An exploration of drivers, cohorts and dynamics for policyholder behavior for VA and FIA based on industry experience data, including changes in recent years and the emergence of long-term data in key areas. We will also discuss critical elements to developing a sustainable and coherent framework to translate this complex experience data into assumption models.

Description: View the Spring 2020 CFE – Strategic Decision Making Exam Syllabi.

Description: This note is designed to provide an overview of the CFE Track and this exam .

Description: This note is intended to aid candidates in reading Business Dynamics by John D. Sterman.

Description: View the Spring 2020 Group and Health—Finance & Valuation, Canada Syllabi.

Description: View the Spring 2020 Group and Health—Finance & Valuation, Canada Introductory Study Note.

Description: View the Spring 2020 Quantitative Finance and Investment—Portfolio Management Syllabi.

Description: View the Spring 2020 QFI – Quantitative Finance Exam Syllabi.

Description: View the Spring 2020 QFI – Investment Risk Management Exam Syllabi.

Description: View the Spring 2020 ERM – Enterprise Risk Management Exam Syllabi.

Description: The speakers will discuss the replication of long-term options, including a discussion of issues such as liquidity, transaction costs, slippage, impact of policyholder behavior, and machine learning algorithms to improve hedge effectiveness.

Description: The speaker will discuss the training of neural networks to compute future Greeks of liabilities (or options) without the use of nested stochastics.

Description: The proposed revisions to the variable annuity statutory framework and the FASB targeted improvement for long duration contract, motivate life insurance companies to re-evaluate their hedging strategy. Recently proposed revisions of AG 43/VM-21 and C3 Phase II, reward companies that have a clearly defined hedging strategy, if the companies can demonstrate that the valuation model and capital model can estimate real hedge performance accurately. The speakers of this session will discuss the hedging implication of the proposed AG 43/VM-21 and C3 Phase II framework. Additionally, methodology computational requirements, back-testing results under different economic scenarios and the resulting hedge credits of different hedging strategies will be compared, including explicit dynamic hedge and implicit dynamic hedge. The speakers will also touch on the impact of rebalance frequency on the performance of dynamic hedge. Case studies will be presented to provide guidance on practical implementation.

Description: View the Lifetime Volunteer Award Recipients.

Description: Read the Q&A with an Experienced Insurance Professional New to Long-Term Care: An Interview with Sean Pena.

Description: Read the October 2019 issue of Long-Term Care News published by the Long Term Care Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.

Description: Column from the SOA staff actuary for the Long-Term Care Section.

Description: This research paper studies catastrophe insurance pools covering losses caused by extreme weather events.

Description: An interview of Matthew Bond focusing on pension liabilities.

Description: Techniques that have gained some traction in general (property/casualty) insurance will be highlighted with a particular focus on the linear mixed model. This model adds random effects to the more commonly seen fixed effects (for example, as used in GLMs).

Description: As any international traveler who has tried to plug in an electronic device knows, the human race is great at devising many different ways to accomplish the same task. Predictive modeling is no different. Data scientists can choose from a wide variety of languages to prepare data, fit models, and verify results. The Rosetta Stone, which showed writing composed in three languages side by side, was instrumental in translating unfamiliar Egyptian hieroglyphics into the more common Greek language. This presentation follows a similar approach by showing the same predictive model implemented in the following languages: R, Python, Spark, MatLab, and SAS. Participants will compare and contrast each of these languages and, by doing so, build a greater understanding of those languages less familiar to them.

Description: Unmet needs and implications for long-term care financing in Singapore.

Description: What pain points of customer experiences those startup companies address? How did they address? How they compete with bigger insurers? Their vision of future insurance

Description: The scope of this paper is to provide a technical overview of the tools and disciplines currently in AI as well as the forces at work that financial institutions such as insurance companies are using to modernize their analytical processes.

Description: Read the September 2019 issue of Retirement Section News published by the Retirement Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.

Description: This seminar is designed to give life and annuity practitioners an in-depth view of the important topics and fundamentals of reinsurance, from the perspective of a U.S. life insurance company. Reinsurance industry experts will present on the various types of reinsurance, contract issues, financial implications and other considerations. Attendees will leave this seminar with a stronger understanding of life and annuity reinsurance, and current topics. Keep in mind this seminar is designed for participants with a moderate level of experience. Educational Objectives • Provide attendees with a stronger understanding of life and annuity reinsurance, and current topics • Give attendees an in-depth view of important topics and fundamentals of reinsurance

Description: The NAIC has adopted revisions on Actuarial Guidelines 43 and C3 Phase II for Variable Annuities ("NAIC VA Reform"), effective January 1, 2020. The panel of presenters will provide background and overview of the Reform, and discuss detailed aspects of the new CTE Amount, Standard Projection and Withdrawal Delay Cohort Method. The panelists will share implementation considerations and the Reform's implications to hedging.

Description: With the halfway point of the transition period in the rear view mirror, many companies are well underway with their VM-20 implementation and analysis efforts. Beyond attempting to master the new rules of the road, actuaries have discovered new effects of product design and assumption setting. Panelists in this session will discuss their experiences with VM-20 reserves for various products and designs, their applications of actuarial judgement and the areas where even they don’t have all the answers. The audience is encouraged to bring their questions and also to share their insights.

Description: In this workshop format session, attendees will discuss the issues encountered when calculating principle-based reserves for life insurance products. At the conclusion of the session, attendees will be able to describe issues encountered when calculating principle-based reserves for life insurance products and discover potential solutions.

Description: Feature article describing a framework for the computation of credit capital requirements under the constant position paradigm, taking into account recovery rates.

Description: Read the August 2019 issue of Risks & Rewards published by the Investment Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.

Description: Feature article discussing the number of challenges associated with ASU 2018-12 related to the measurement of market risk benefits.

Description: The article highlights the key components of the PBR resource manual and analyze its implications for companies' assumption management practice.

Description: Read the September 2019 issue of The Financial Reporter published by the Financial Reporting Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.

Description: Feature article discussing how the insurance industry can become more data driven.

Description: This article lays conceptual foundations associated with projecting investment-related discretionary elements of various life insurance and annuity products. It outlines potential implementation approaches that may be appropriate when calculations are performed in a risk-neutral setting. The article concludes that crediting rates in risk-neutral models can be projected as in real-world models, except that the modeled provision for expected credit losses should be modified to equal real-world expected losses initially, but over the projection reflect management’s evolving expectation, moving ultimately to risk neutral expected losses.

Description: View the Quantitative Finance and Investment Portfolio Management Formula Sheet.

Description: Read about the 2019 Call for Essays: Actuarial Practice Innovation.

Description: Read the August 2019 issue of Predictive Analytics and Futurism published by the Predictive Analytics and Futurism Section. Newsletter provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.

Description: The Future of Insurance is described, as seen by some heads of start-up FinTech companies.

Description: Certain valuation assumptions are difficult to set with a high degree of accuracy, whether because the underlying experience is in different economic or interest rate environments, in addition to other reasons. Examples include assumptions for long-term care insurance, annuity options, lapsation and premium persistency on ULSG. This session will share how the actuary can use predictive analytics to augment the assumption-setting process. Some of the benefits to the actuary (along with the company and the regulator) include more accurate assumptions with lower margins for adverse deviations. Of possible interest as well is that applications go beyond valuation and include acquisitions, reinsurance and pricing.

Description: Baseline and what-if/stressed projections of cash flows, financial statements and capital requirements are critical inputs to a range of business purposes, including forecasts, risk management, liquidity management, strategic decision making, etc. Forward looking projections have historically been inefficient and performed in silos making it difficult to scale the process as CFOs and CROs ask for more. In this session we discuss challenges of the forecast process and opportunities to meet desired future capabilities. We will also discuss “what-if” analysis and ways to support production of forward looking projections for “what-if” analysis in an efficient way.

Description: The arrival of ASU 2018-12 (a.k.a Targeted Improvements to the Accounting for Long-Duration Contracts or GAAP Targeted Improvements) presents insurers with augmented financial reporting risk across all areas of the valuation process. Naturally, the internal control frameworks that serve to mitigate these risks must evolve and expand. Valuation actuaries should view this transformative event as an opportunity to take an active role in developing new and improved controls that are both effective and sustainable.

Description: Modeling methods and assumptions can be simple, complex, or somewhere between. This session will explore considerations and tradeoffs when determining approaches to different apsects of asset modeling in the context of ALM projection. Examples of advanced ALM applications to be discussed include credit risk modeling and duration/convexity management in ALM investment strategies.

Description: A session detailing how to calculate, understand and explain reserve movements in a PBR world. The session will illustrate how to: Calculate expected and actual reserve movements Analyze the results (SOE/GBS/EBS)Explain the results to a range of audience members, including a non-actuarial focus At the conclusion of the session, attendees will be able to evaluate reserve calculation, explain reserve movements and explain PBR earnings.

Description: While most actuaries work for companies and have as a primary objective the financial success of their employers, regulatory actuaries primarily serve the public interest. In part one of this presentation, we will explore the role of actuaries whose priority is to serve the public interest. Regulation is developed by a deliberative process that includes regulators, the American Academy of Actuaries, trade associations and the companies that will be affected by the regulation. In part two of this session, we will present a series of vignettes each focusing on recent updates to the Valuation Manual. At the conclusion of the session, attendees will have a deeper appreciation of what goes on behind the scenes in the development of regulation.

Description: The first of two reports focused on how families cope with the final years of life. This report summarizes 40 interviews with children of recently deceased parents.

Description: Read the July 2019 issue of Reinsurance News published by the Reinsurance Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about the section activities.

Description: An interview with Tony Laudato, VP, Partnership Solutions for Hannover Re US, discussing the benefits of digital distribution.

Description: The collective investment in transforming the life insurance proposition exceeds anything seen in the last thirty years — a working lifetime. As one would expect, reinsurers are playing a major role. The past five years have seen global reinsurers raise the bar on client experience to new levels, while also investing, expanding and re-organizing to support the transformation of the primary insurance industry, and in so doing also their own.