Description: In this interview, Caroline Grégoire, formerly from Hannover Re, and now international mentor, coach, trainer and speaker, shares her views on how mentoring can support you on your career path and how it also benefits the reinsurance industry as a whole.

Description: The Taxing Times Editorial Board acknowledges the invaluable contributions of our colleague, Art Schneider, who passed away in August. Throughout his career as a tax accountant, Art generously shared his time and talents to help actuaries and other tax professionals increase their understanding of insurance industry tax topics. We will miss him.

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.

Description: Read the Quo Vadis Reinsurance.

Description: The October/November 2013 edition of The Actuary magazine—the Society of Actuaries’ flagship publication.

Description: Article about how Toastmasters can benefit actuaries in several competencies areas.

Description: Section member Greg Fann writes about his mid-career personal and professional reflections, paralleling the actuarial life experience with oceanic travel through the lyrics of the Jimmy Buffet ballad “A Pirate Looks at 40”.

Description: Leadership Interview with CMS Chief Actuary, Paul Spitalnic

Description: A periodic update from the chairperson on section council activities and outlook for the coming year.

Description: The widening gap in life span between high- and low-income Americans may be eroding the progressivity of Social Security retirement benefits. Differential longevity trends have had the effect of raising lifetime benefits for high earners but not for low earners. Social Security’s long-term financial problems result in part from an increase in average life expectancy driven by wealthier people living longer, and, thereby, collecting more benefits. Policymakers should not use funding shortfalls attributable to these trends as an excuse to cut monthly benefits alike for those who have gained (high earners) and for those who haven’t (low earners).