Description: The financial environment changed dramatically between 2008 and 2009. To gauge the impact of the financial downturn on retirees, the Society of Actuaries, LIMRA, and the International Foundation for Retirement Education re-surveyed respondents of the 2008 study, 'Will Retirement Assets Last a Lifetime?'. The original 2008 study surveyed 1,524 retirees ages 55 to 75 with $100,000 or more in household investable assets prior to the financial downturn. The participants were re-contacted in April 2009 and posed a subset of the original questions via an online survey. In this follow-up report, the 2009 results are contrasted with the results of the original 2008 study.

Description: This research report, part of the Society of Actuaries [SOA} ‘Research Projects – Finance/Investment,’ is sponsored by the Casualty Actuarial Society [CAS], Canadian Institute of Actuaries [CIA], and the Society of Actuaries [SOA] Joint Risk Management Section Research Team and the SOA's Committee on Finance Research. This paper examines the subprime mortgage crises and related financial consequences from the perspective of the insurance industry.

Description: Research paper that was the result of an invitation by the SOA's Pension Section Research Committee PSRC to explore the adequacy of the current and future supplies of high-quality long-term bonds in Canada, the U.S., and other countries to meet the future needs and obligations of defined benefit retirement systems.

Description: The following paper, authored by Brian A. Jones and copyrighted in 2008, was the result of an invitation by the SOA's Pension Section Research Team to explore the current state of defined benefit plans in Canada and future visions of them.

Description: The use of Risk Adjustment in Medicare Advantage (MA) has come under scrutiny due in part to a higher rate of increase of costs of its participating Health plans relative to traditional Medicare despite statutory requirements that reimbursement for these two programs must be actuarially equivalent.

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: This report covers the latest emerging trends in U.S. population mortality. The SOA relied upon data furnished by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Observations are based on the CDC’s recent release of 2021 mortality experience, along with prior mortality experience data from 1999 through 2020.

Description: LIMRA, Reinsurance Group of America (RGA), the Society of Actuaries (SOA) Research Institute, and TAI have collaborated on an ongoing effort to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on the individual life insurance industry’s mortality experience and share the emerging results with the insurance industry and the public. This report documents a high-level analysis of the claims that have been reported.

Description: In the United States, individuals needing long-term services and supports (LTSS) access care, utilize services, and pay for their services in various ways. The authors explore how the need for, utilization of and payment for long-term services and supports differ in the U.S. by population cohorts. Their primary focus is disparity by race and ethnicity, but they also consider variations by geography, family structure, age, sex, gender and other socioeconomic factors.

Description: On January 12, 2023, the Arizona Blockchain Applied Research Center (AZ BARC) and the SOA Research Institute jointly ran a workshop on the use of blockchain technology in insurance and financial industries. The workshop included presentations focused on academic research in the blockchain space by Arizona State University, AZ BARC and an industry expert panel assembled by the SOA Research Institute. This document summarizes the research highlights and the discussions that occurred during the two-hour workshop.