Description: ACA risk adjustment has now been in play for years. The original intent of risk adjustment was to help stabilize the market through measuring risk levels of each issuer. However, the risk adjustment program may have introduced additional uncertainty due to annual market shifts and model changes, making risk adjustment estimation is a difficult task. This article analyzes the results over time, including impacts from market changes and model changes.

Description: This chapter introduces a few probability distributions that play an important role in understanding and analyzing healthcare data. While theoretical in nature, these distributions model real life if appropriately chosen. Probability distributions are mathematical representations of how statistical data behave.

Description: The presenters will discuss a paper, initiated by the SOA's Experience Studies Executive Committee, that presents the various rate calculations used in experience studies for different lines of business.

Description: There will be no easy resolution to the current trade friction between the U.S. and China. If anything, the motivations for increasing protectionism are set to intensify. What are these motivations? Where is this trade war headed? And what impact could this have on economies and financial markets?

Description: The purpose of this survey is to provide international actuaries with benchmark assumption data.

Description: This article provides a review of the topics discussed at Refocus 2008.

Description: Reinsurance Section chairperson Gaetano Geretto shares his final chairperson's column and discusses accomplishments achieved during the 2008 year.

Description: This article examines the emphasis that is currently being placed on assessing, monitoring and managing credit concentration risks.

Description: Important tools used in property & casualty P&C insurance—predictive modeling and data mining—can be applied to more effectively model policyholder behavior risks in variable annuity VA contracts. In this article, a case study is used to demonstrate how a predictive modeling approach can improve upon traditional methods used to model VA lapse behavior.