Description: MACRA not only impact providers, it will impact the entire healthcare market. MACRA published studies and commentary to date have primarily focused on providers, with the majority of the information addressing the impacts to clinicians. However, our investigation indicates MACRA has far reaching impacts to payers as well as providers. MACRA is impacting each geographic market and line of business in a unique way, and health payers will have multiple strategic decisions to consider given the changing market dynamics.

Description: Discusses the market, demographic, and macroeconomic factors that affect actuaries' choices for the assumptions they use in the pricing and valuation of many insurance products.

Description: This article provides an overview of behavioral economic theory as it relates to health and welfare insurance plans and provides summaries of two sample applications of the theories: enrollment in health insurance exchanges created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and product design considerations in light of vast health illiteracy.

Description: The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been discussed widely and in depth, with lockdown measures and restrictions on travel and trading having a severe impact on the global economy. It is therefore essential the insurance industry investigates these changes in the economy in terms of their impact on morbidity and mortality. In this article, we highlight some of the key findings on this topic.

Description: This article is intended to provide an introduction to microfinance and microinsurance. Microfinance began in the 1960's and 1970's as a humanitarian activity directed at the poor to provide micro loans for working capital. Microinsurance MI protects people in the low-income range against specific perils in exchange for regular premium payments.

Description: This article provides a flavor for the wealth of statistical information provided by the Bureau Of Economic Analysis. It describes the BEA program, tells how to obtain BEA outputs, and looks at some issues BEA faces.

Description: GDP growth has slowed as numerous headwinds have emerged. This article summarizes a research paper by Mark Alberts and Max Rudolph that addresses reasons why this is so and how risk managers can address using scenarios.

Description: Many countries have suffered the ups and downs of the COVID-19pandemic, and Mexico is no exception. Even worse, in contrast withEuropean countries that saw numbers dip during the summer of2020, Mexico did not. A first peak was reached at the end of July2020, then a slight decrease in the following two months. SinceOctober, Mexico has experienced the worst increasing trend of thewhole epidemic. In this article, Arturo Erdely, a professor of actuarialscience, explains this increase.

Description: This article provides a general introduction to JRI, including details about the types of research areas it highlights, an explanation of its prior review policy, current calls for papers, and its social media efforts.

Description: This article discusses how the industry as a whole is revisiting its risk management strategies in the wake of the financial crisis.