Description: Summary of NAIC's Winter National Meeting

Description: Discussion of the separate and joint effects of obesity and diabetes on disability and mortality, and ways these effects can be used to improved insurance pricing and reserving, reverse the increasing rates of obesity and diabetes, and improve current projections of disability and mortality risks.

Description: The article looks at potential changes in care provider demographics that could ultimately have an impact on the cost of long term care services.

Description: This article addresses studies which came to different conclusions regarding whether 401k plans are financially advantageous. Also presented is a paper, using more elaborate assumptions, which analyzes the effects of 401 k participation at various income levels.

Description: Overview of regularization and least angle regression approaches.

Description: A review of the Bridging the Gap Series: Application of Predictive Modeling in VA/FIA Risk Management at the Equity Based Guarantees Conference in Chicago.

Description: The well-known examples of predictive modeling “successes” are numerous. Perhaps less widely recognized is the myriad of ways in which a predictive model can fail to perform as expected, often due to misconceptions or misrepresentations on the part of the analyst. This article, which is intended for a general actuarial audience, focuses on three such pitfalls. By understanding these three common pitfalls, readers may guard against them within their own work, teams, and organizations.

Description: In the year’s first issue of Reinsurance News I talked a bit about what the Reinsurance Section Council had planned for 2015.

Description: Comments about new Brazilian reinsurance rules, with brief historical summary of the regulation developments since the opening of the Brazilian reinsurance market.