Description: Hear an overview of InsurTech trends and challenges globally. Then, presenters will dive deeper to talk about InsurTech's application in insurance product distribution via smartphones and insurance company's risk selection, risk evaluation, risk control and the related challenges brought to actuaries. Specific applications and cases will be presented.

Description: When annuity products became prevalent in the U.S., they all looked more or less the same. It was where folks put their safe retirement money, yielding modest guaranteed returns with a menu of payout options to help secure their retirement. Over time, this commoditization lead to a pricing squeeze and an exhaustive set of product options and features, exposing carriers to market and policyholder behavior risk over the past decade or so.

Description: The presenters will discuss recent regulatory changes that allow some long-term care benefits to be included in Medicare Advantage plans. Hear an overview of what has become available in the market and what might happen in the near future.

Description: The prospects of longer retirement durations driven by the continued improvement in mortality, changes in social insurance “normal” retirement ages, and/or socio-economic factors, have made several decisions about retirement more important.

Description: Ronald Fawthrop and Brian Holland of the SOA’s Individual Life Experience Committee provided a preview of an upcoming individual life mortality study at the SOA’s Life and Annuity Symposium on May 9, 2017. Their presentations are available here.

Description: Business success in the future depends on assumptions we make today. However, we operate in a dynamic environment and cannot know with certainty what lies ahead. Addressing the challenge requires a synergy between data science, expert judgement, and decision making to spot changing drivers of key risks and respond with appropriate business action. We will be presenting development of such an "ecosystem" technically enabled by Natural Language Processing to monitor and detect signals from news streams. NLP is of increasing importance for insurance companies. Additional application examples are available in session 23.

Description: The speaker will share his insights into the hedging challenges faced by FIA and VA business in the current market environment.

Description: Papers: Chronic Diseases and Longevity Risk: An Application to Type II Diabetes Insurance Products – Hsin-Chung Wang, Ph.D. - Aletheia University; Jack C. Yue, ASA, Ph.D. – National Chengchi University; Ting-Chung Chang - Chihlee University of Technology Understanding Multimorbidities - Sam Gutterman, FSA, CERA, FCA, FCAS, HONFIA, MAAA

Description: The always popular Medicaid Hot Topics session is back with discussions from an expert panel on the most riveting Medicaid topics of the year. These could include the following: • Medicaid Fiscal Accountability Proposed Regulations• Tennessee's Block Grant Proposal• ACA court battles: What are the potential impacts on Medicaid? • Pass-through payments are converting to directed payments: What is changing?• And more current topics of interest to Medicaid actuariesMedicaid is dynamic and it is difficult to stay current on all of the changes. This session provides insightful discussion into the major changes that impact actuaries and their companies or state clients.

Description: To discuss the principles to be followed in the determination of dividend distribution scheme, how to ensure the fairness and sustainability of dividend distribution, and the specific issues to be considered in the practice of dividend distribution.