Description: Health insurance company assets and liabilities have evolved since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law in March 2010. The ACA fundamentally rearranged how commercial health insurance is funded by integrating federal premium subsidies and pass-throughs together with a marketplace interwoven with transfer payments among stakeholders. The impacts of these programs can be seen in specific accounting items on the balance sheets of health insurance companies over the past 10 years. Their emergence follows three primary trends: (1) balance sheet items tend to be larger and take longer to settle, (2) there are more interactions among items, and (3) the final settlement amounts are more uncertain.

Description: Latest in our on-going series in which we have a candid discussion with one the insurance industry's most respected and high profile risk practitioners

Description: This article was written to increase the knowledge and insights of both the direct writer and reinsurer in optimizing the reinsurance negotiation process. It should help the reinsurer offer a more competitive quote and hence win a share in a reinsurance pool while simultaneously helping the direct writer obtain lower reinsurance costs helping their product pricing and bottom line.

Description: An executive perspective on strategy and risk in reinsurance.

Description: Feature article discussing the impact of health care reform on the direct insurance market and the reinsurance market.

Description: Discussion of a newly released LTC experience study, including description of data and its increased scope compared to the prior report, reporting specifications, and findings.

Description: Announcement of changes to the LTC Section, and a preview of the articles in the December 2009 issue of Long Term Care News, with topics including Health care reform and LTC vs. Medicaid.

Description: Stakeholders in a specific state (Minnesota) were interviewed about the potential value -- and obstacles -- of a catastrophic backstop program to handle long term care (LTC) financing needs. The design would entail a payroll deduction which would produce a fund to pay LTC expenses once a deductible period (of 1 to 4 years, depending on income) was reached. This design was believed to encourage enrollees to cover the front end better than done today, whether by private insurance or other means.

Description: This article starts with the increasing attention that FP&A receives due to the implementation of new financial regimes and emphasizes the collaborative nature of FP&A. It then describes the roles that actuaries play in FP&A, the new demands for actuaries that we are observing, and suggests some best practices that we are seeing across the clients. This article targets to point out the new demands from FP&A on actuaries and provide some advice on how actuaries can do to meet these demands.

Description: This article gives a formula for reversing failure into success