Description: The Indian market holds tremendous potential for insurance products, especially in segments that remain untapped. The market is evolving in terms of market penetration, product innovation, regulatory changes, government initiatives, capital adequacy and customer experience. In this report, we have highlighted insurance trends in India based on insights gathered from practitioners' interviews, available research and literature, with a particular focus on the enterprise risk management (ERM) function of insurance companies.

Description: The Society of Actuaries’ Committee on Finance Research and Investment Section are pleased to make available a research report explores gross domestic product (GDP) as a metric of economic growth.

Description: This report presents research into recent population mortality experience compiled by the Retirement Plans Experience Committee of the Society of Actuaries Research Institute as it pertains to development of mortality improvement assumptions for measuring obligations of retirement programs in the United States.

Description: On March 22, 2022, the Wall Street Journal hosted its annual Health Forum, a virtual all-day event which included several sessions. This session was attended by experts across the healthcare space and attendees included many from the healthcare technology companies. This report summarizes the event.

Description: The SOA Research Institute conducted an online survey of 1,000 U.S. respondents who are actively saving for both their retirement and a family member’s or friend’s college education. The results offer a better understanding of the challenges families face. Read the report for detailed findings or peruse the infographic for an overview.

Description: This report presents initial findings from a project investigating the direct and indirect impacts of COVID-19 in the post-acute phase of the pandemic. These findings focused on cause-specific excess mortality in the first three pandemic years, March 2020 to February 2023. In addition, the authors investigated how different mechanisms contributed and could continue to affect mortality rates following the acute pandemic period. The study is based on weekly mortality data by age and cause of death from 2015 to 2023 obtained from the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, combined with population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Weekly excess deaths by age and cause comparing observed deaths to deaths expected based on pre-pandemic trends were computed. Then the temporal correlation between weekly COVID-19 and excess deaths from other causes at various lags were assessed. The authors developed a theoretical framework to interpret the results of this analysis and understand potential underlying factors responsible for excess mortality.

Description: The global doubling of information content has been estimated to occur at a rate of every 12 hours, and conceivably faster. This ‘infowhelm’ is a double-edged sword for insurers. While maximization of the global knowledge base can fuel innovation, it can occur only in the context of reasonable cost for a higher benefit. The insurance industry – underwriters and actuaries in particular – are challenged to constantly examine new innovations that promise to raise confidence and protective value for insurability, within legal limits. This report aims to be the first of several to alert the SOA of promising innovations for the profession.

Description: The objective of this paper is to provide a practical guide with concrete case studies to help actuaries implement artificial intelligence and machine learning (AIML) to help accelerate the speed of analysis for life and annuity actuarial modeling. We do so by researching the existing literature regarding AIML and its applicability to stochastic modeling and exploring case studies.

Description: This report is a discussion of the significant challenges involved in attempting to research with robust analysis the impact of disparities in health care access, cost and quality of care on financial wellness across racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and other demographic groups in the U.S. for reasons other than or in addition to income, wealth or employment status.

Description: The SOA Research Institute Aging and Retirement Strategic Research Program and Retirement Section are pleased to make available a research report that examines megatrends and potential paradigm shifts, and how they may impact the future of retirement and retirement plans, as well as the macro forces that will shape those trends.