Description: Actuaries today have unique opportunities to analyze, understand and use data for strategic decision making. With nearly unlimited computing power and a broad spectrum of data sources at our fingertips, we are enabled to support our actuarial judgment with comprehensive findings backed up by deep data analyses.

Description: The post COVID-19 period exhibited a fast-changing capital market with higher interest rates, uncertain monetary policies, and revaluation of asset classes. At the same time, regulators introduced changes to reward better risk management, such as the scenario-based approach for reserving under Bermuda regulatory framework. For life reinsurers, while new opportunities arising from these changes, challenges also exist to be able to adjust reinsurance portfolios and ALM strategies appropriately. A holistic modeling framework can assist companies better position themselves in front of these challenges and other potential future unknowns. In particular, a well-designed stochastic and dynamic modeling framework enables the quantifications of such probabilities and potential impacts.

Description: Life insurance and annuity illustrations are an important part of the sales and ongoing policy maintenance process educating consumers on how the products could perform in a given set of circumstances. While candidates for Fellowship in the Society of Actuaries and even practicing actuaries may have a general knowledge of what they are and awareness of the regulations and applicable standards of actuarial practice, they may not know much about the intricacies of illustrations and illustration testing. The purpose of this project is to create a resource to improve actuarial practitioners’ understanding of illustrations. Additionally, this topic is not currently addressed in the exam curriculum. It is intended that selected sections of the report on this research would be suitable for inclusion in the Fellowship syllabus.

Description: This report is presented in the form of a Tableau dashboard and is the sixth public release from this report series and contains the results of an excess mortality analysis for the fourth quarter of 2021. Data from 30 companies representing approximately 69% of the industry’s face amount inforce were included in the analyses in this report. A total of 3.2 million death claims from individual life policies from 2015 through December 31, 2021 make up the basis of the analyses. The report also compares the experience under COVID-19 of the insured population versus the general population.

Description: The Society of Actuaries are once again offering a seminar that investigates all aspects of life insurance, annuity and long term care product tax compliance. Developed by the Taxation Section, participants will be brought up-to-date on recent Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidance and learn about the newest tax issues related to product design and administration. Legal, IRS and product development experts will provide vital insights into the challenges of developing and administering products within the requirements of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), and allow ample opportunities for networking, questions and information exchange.

Description: On June 17, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service published Final Regulations implementing changes to loss reserve discounting under section 846 of the Internal Revenue Code made by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This note addresses changes made in the Final Regulations, particularly modification of rules for determining the interest rate used for discounting, in response to comments from taxpayers on the proposed regulations.

Description: This article summarizes the treatment of changes in the basis for determining life insurance tax reserves under prior law and describes the changes enacted by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It further explains the procedures for changing the basis of computing reserves under the new rules as outlined in Revenue Procedure 2019-10, the IRS’s December 2018 guidance on the subject, and discusses the uncertainties that remain.

Description: Part 2 of the article continues providing data on why IUL income streams need to be managed and suggests techniques that insurance companies could provide to policyholders and advisors to do so. The author also offers his research data free of charge to any actuary who contacts him to request it.

Description: The Society of Actuaries Product Development Section, the Modeling Section, the Reinsurance Section and the Financial Reporting Section announce the release of a new research report that introduces a novel framework for leveraging the "architecture" of an industry mortality table within a company's predictive analytics-based insured mortality analysis.

Description: This article considers PLR 201304003, which addressed the application of Internal Revenue Code section 1035 to the exchange of a survivorship, or “second-to-die,” life insurance contract after the death of one of the insureds for a new life insurance contract covering only the life of the surviving insured.