Description: This article discusses world economic and financial trends and how people can be fooled into thinking nothing can go wrong.

Description: Against a background of recent capital market downturns, this article discusses the need for increasing the focus on risk control with respect to variable annuity and life products. This article originally appeared in the September 14, 1998 issue of The National Underwriter, a publication of the National Underwriter Company, and is reprinted here with permission.

Description: The article discusses the investment models of The Mutual Pension Insurance Company Ilmarinen, one of the companies managing the statutory employment pension in Finland. The parts are: financial time series data management, time series analysis programs, investment simulation models and portfolio optimization models.

Description: Patenting in the insurance business has developed into a robust discipline. Insurance company management and legal counsel must consider a variety of issues involving intellectual property rights.

Description: The Long and Short (Runs) of Investing in Equities by Peter Yoo from Risks and Rewards Newsletter, March 1999, Issue No. 32.

Description: A paper entitled “A Regime-Switching Model of Long-Term Stock Returns” appears in the April 2001 issue of the North American Actuarial Journal. In it, Dr. Mary Hardy describes a model for future equity returns and some reasons why that model might better reflect real equity price movements than the often-used lognormal model. The purpose of this article is to apply a two-regime model to variable annnuity GMDB pricing and compare the results to those from a lognormal model.

Description: The author notes that “current market value is highly relevant, but its accuracy is limited. Historical accounting, on the other hand, is highly accurate, but is of little relevance.” The article then goes on to discuss two leading methods for performing fair valuation of liabilities: the actuarial appraisal method and the option pricing method, and how they can be reconciled.

Description: Full version of Risks and Rewards Newsletter, July 2001, Issue No. 37.

Description: This article discusses how FHLB advances, i.e. low cost loans, can supply valuable risk management benefits. By carefully structuring an advance to mature coincident with the anticipated premium inflows generated by insurance products, a company can largely eliminate future net cash flows and consequently the need to invest them in uncertain capital markets.

Description: Risk Management and Actuaries—SOA Risk Management Task Force Update