Description: Nobody is perfect, and actuaries are no exception. At some point, every actuary is bound to make a big mistake. These kinds of mistakes can have a significant impact on an actuary's reputation — whether that impact is positive or negative depends in large part on the way someone investigates, communicates, and resolves errors they uncover. By approaching mistakes with transparency and honesty, these big mistakes can actually enhance credibility and reputation, rather than harm it.

Description: This article summarizes findings from a recently published peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Risk and Insurance (Hanewald et al., 2025),[1], which examined how access to housing wealth affects stated demand for LTC insurance in China. We conducted a survey of homeowners aged 45-–64 across 49 cities in China and found that offering reverse mortgages or home reversion products significantly increased stated demand for LTC insurance. This article highlights the study’s key results and implications for insurers, actuaries, and policymakers.

Description: Future mortality improvement has been a common assumption in life insurance and annuity pricing and forecasting for many years. However, experience over the last decade suggests this might be an assumption that merits reconsideration in the United States. This article will take a closer look at factors that impact mortality improvement trends and discuss why insurers may want to reevaluate product designs to better manage the associated mortality risk. We then introduce a product idea with this in mind, where premiums are based on a life expectancy index and insurers share the risk (and opportunity) or mortality improvement with policyholders.

Description: This article spotlights four groups that are all working to move the SOA’s strategic agenda forward.

Description: Survey results from the Marketing and Distribution Section. From News Direct, June 2007, Issue No. 56.

Description: This article contains interviews with the directors of three Society of Actuaries departments. Margaret Ann Jordan is the managing director of Information Technology and Services, Tiffany Berger is the director of Finance and Facilities, and Toni Murril is the director of Human Resources.