Description: This is a research report that highlights the characteristics of combination plans that serve to reduce the risks to insurers issuing life or annuity products linked to long-term care insurance. Observations are provided to assist in the understanding of the factors that explain the profit change sensitivity results and the natural hedging against major risks that inherently is present within the linked products.

Description: The Joint Risk Management Section, sponsored by the Casualty Actuarial Society, Canadian Institute of Actuaries, and the Society of Actuaries, is interested in better understanding how risk managers deal with emerging risks. The objective of this effort is to examine and ultimately give guidance to risk managers on how to deal with these unknown and developing risks.

Description: This study seeks to understand what has already been done to date to determine how many people are at risk, how great that risk is, and what can be done to minimize it. In addition, this report explores solutions that may lay in changing individual behaviors. Since much of what happens in preparation for and during retirement is up to an individual, we want to understand what we know about individual behaviors and how we can influence them. In addition, it should also be recognized that solutions might lie in new public or employer policies or in new products for the marketplace. Although there have been some new products entering the market in recent years—like late retirement, or so-called longevity insurance—the development of new solutions has been slow and may be hampered by complex government regulations.

Description: This project shows how to use agent-based models to simulate the behaviors of agents in complex health systems.

Description: This report examines the circumstances that lead to systemic risk and proposes a new definition.

Description: This report aims to help actuaries and other interested parties to define the relative differences in managing risks between the insurance and banking industries. This report guides actuaries and others about change risk management practices to prevent future financial failures. The paper seeks to examine what factors account for the differences in the United States, compared with Canada about the underlying causes and effects of the most recent crisis with financial institutions.

Description: This is the English version of the research report, “Funding Public Health Insurance Plans Canada and Globally”. This report briefly looks at the actual health care funding models and metrics in seven countries (Canada, Sweden, France, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States) along with health care metrics for another 13 countries (20 OECD countries in total). This report also suggests a number of possible areas where actuaries could provide expertise to assist in the management of public health care plans.

Description: There have been many examples of interest rate swap deals which have not produced the desired results for the end-user, largely due to unanticipated interest rate movements. While the authors of this paper strongly believe that derivatives, such as IR swaps, are powerful tools, which when used properly can effectively transfer risk and enhance the efficiency of markets, they also believe it is critically important to analyze the potential exposure to interest-rate risk. In this article, they provide the necessary background to measure this potential exposure.

Description: The US and EU are each pursuing modernization of their regulatory frameworks. The purpose of this paper is to provide a discussion of the emerging developments, the historical contexts or drivers of each, and potential implications for insurers. The paper discusses some of the global, wider financial services, and insurance specific activities underway that are influencing solvency developments for life insurers. It provides an overview of the differences in the current US and EU regimes and the regulatory changes underway. The paper then identifies key valuation implications, the impact on pricing and product design, and risk management implications.

Description: This SOA report’s purpose is to increase awareness of the importance of many reinsurance treaty terms/provisions, identify common treaty structures, practices, and/or solutions in reinsurance treaty construction and negotiation and illustrate how treaty terms have evolved over time. Lessons can be learned from ceding companies’ and reinsurers’ viewpoints and objectives on key treaty provisions and by considering obstacles, compromises, conflicts and solutions during and subsequent to the treaty construction and negotiation process. This report is based on questionnaire responses, telephone interviews, participant research assignments, follow-up email correspondence and an in-person roundtable discussion. This report documents participant’s points, counterpoints, counter-counterpoints and insights