Description: This article discusses unauthorized trading scandals — commonly referred to as “rogue trading”.

Description: This article demonstrates and explains the differences between the current Canadian and U.S. capital regimes on life insurance companies. The concept and framework of regulatory capital is first introduced and Canadian regulation capital requirements—minimum continuing capital and surplus requirements (MCCSR) and U.S. regulation capital-risk based capital (RBC)—is explained and compared.

Description: A critical step in valuing a company for the purpose of financial reporting is the computation of the market value of economic surplus (MVES). This article provides a novel approach to the valuation of MVES that is stable and reasonably immune to “market noise.” Current approaches to the calculation of economic surplus of an insurance company generally define such surplus as the market value of the assets (MVA) supporting the liabilities less the market value of liabilities (MVL). While MVA is observable in the market, MVL is typically computed directly, without regard to the underlying supporting assets. Subtracting MVL from any value of assets that changes with market movements results in an unstable surplus. Consequently, a surplus that is not fully reflective of market sentiment has been rejected by many. This same approach is further used in the calculation of market consistent embedded value (MCEV) when a balance sheet approach is used .

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

Description: Recurring column that lists recent publications in risk management of note to readers.

Description: This article addresses the key capital and risk management issues immediately confronting the industry.

Description: This article provides some insights into risk appetite and how it relates to ERM.

Description: This article describes the financial modelers’ manifesto. Focus is on how difficult it is to model financial instruments when there is a human element involved.

Description: The crisis has spread due to a systematic failure of the regulatory system. Over the last 20 years, regulations that fostered market stability were eliminated and new financial instruments were allowed to propagate without any real oversight. Instead of bailing out weak financial firms, we should be liquidating them. All doubtful assets need to be written-downs. We need accurate and transparent accounting. Government can help in this effort by cleaning up our accounting system. But it needs to stop being an investor propping up those that should be in the morgue. It needs to conservatively regulate all financial instruments. It should foster liquidity and stoke demand.

Description: This paper examines the characteristics of an ideal product and the type of institution that would be well positioned to offer the ideal product which would allow a housing asset to be a viable retirement asset.