Description: 2022 was a year of radical change for the annuity market as interest rates increased from historic lows. The rapid growth of RILA products stalled as FIA and MYGA products saw a significant increase in market share. The impacts of the higher rate environment are continuing to be realized in experience, inforce management, product design and more. Explore the retail annuity market with a focus on the impacts of higher interest rates. Expect session materials to draw on experience studies, sales results, product changes, and more which will examine how higher interest rates have altered the annuity market.

Description: Find out how actuaries can use the principles of microservices, which are fundamentally important for improving outcomes for actuarial modernization initiatives. This presentation is NOT worried about Mmcroservices technology itself, but, microservices have properties that actuaries can mimic and replicate to make business processes be more efficient, more timely, and easier to maintain and govern. Focus on how you can incorporate software engineering concepts into help solving actuarial problems without concerning yourself with software engineering technology.

Description: There have been several law changes made as part of Secure Act 1.0 and 2.0, which should help In-plan annuities become much more prevalent. Pooled employer plans (PEPs) should be the critical catalyst that help plan sponsors be more apt to adopt annuity options. There are several existing options that will be explored, as well as expectations for future market trends and ways life insurers can play in this space as it develops.

Description: Review the Bermuda Monetary Authority's Consultation Paper I and focus on required changes to governance, risk management, modeling, lapse risk, filing requirements, model governance and more.

Description: Explore real-life experiences implementing LDTI for traditional life and annuity products. Learn about strategies that worked well and pitfalls to avoid in the future. Topics include data and assumption management, building disclosures for attribution analyses and roll-forwards, discount rates, implementing new DAC calculations, reinsurance accounting methods, and risk-neutral ESGs and processes to calculate Market Risk Benefits.

Description: In the insurance industry, machine learning models are increasingly used to make decisions that affect people's lives. In order to ensure that models are fair, they should be audited for bias. There are no hard and fast rules for bias audit; metrics that can be used to evaluate fairness vary depending on the context in which the model is deployed. In this session, we present a flexible framework that highlights key considerations in bias evaluation that can be adjusted to suit your process. In this session, we will learn about different metrics to assess fairness, discuss open source tools that can be used for bias audit, and walk through a case study.

Description: The proposed revisions to the variable annuity statutory framework and the FASB targeted improvement for long duration contract, motivate life insurance companies to re-evaluate their hedging strategy. Recently proposed revisions of AG 43/VM-21 and C3 Phase II, reward companies that have a clearly defined hedging strategy, if the companies can demonstrate that the valuation model and capital model can estimate real hedge performance accurately. The speakers of this session will discuss the hedging implication of the proposed AG 43/VM-21 and C3 Phase II framework. Additionally, methodology computational requirements, back-testing results under different economic scenarios and the resulting hedge credits of different hedging strategies will be compared, including explicit dynamic hedge and implicit dynamic hedge. The speakers will also touch on the impact of rebalance frequency on the performance of dynamic hedge. Case studies will be presented to provide guidance on practical implementation.

Description: The proposed regulations define a class of products known as “qualifying longevity annuity contracts” (QLACs), which are excluded from the account balance used to determine required minimum distributions. By exempting longevity annuities (up to a specified limit) from the RMD rules, it is hoped that it will provide individuals under defined-contribution plans the option to use an “affordable” portion of their account balance to purchase a longevity annuity. The proposed regulations apply to tax-qualified defined-contribution plans under section 401(a), section 403(b), individual retirement annuities and accounts (IRAs) under section 408, and eligible governmental section 457 plans.

Description: Articles on IRS private letter rulings on combination products, IRS treatment of reinsurance under section 845, and IRS waivers for failed contracts under section 7702.

Description: Discusses earlier IRS rulings on Contingent Deferred Annuities and the latest ones, PLRs 201117012 and 201117013. Highlights two important additional issues covered in latest rulings.