Description: This article is the second installment in a three-part series on economic scenario generators (“ESGs”). Part I was published in the November 2019 issue. Part II addresses critical considerations in selecting, building, using, and validating ESGs. The article discusses key criteria in understanding ESGs including: - Risk factors - Scenario type - Process and parameterization - Calibration - Number of scenarios - Timing considerations

Description: Guidance and a model for actuaries to use when performing their professional services related to Medicaid (Title XIX) and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP or Title XXI) managed care capitation rate setting.

Description: The instructors in this boot camp session will highlight the SOA's work on an updated Medicaid underwriting margin model. This research project includes an excel model, a set of instructions and a paper describing the key components of underwriting margin, including cost of capital and risk margin.

Description: This article provides an overview of behavioral economic theory as it relates to health and welfare insurance plans and provides summaries of two sample applications of the theories: enrollment in health insurance exchanges created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and product design considerations in light of vast health illiteracy.

Description: As results emerged showing the influence of COVID-19 on recent mortality, the Society of Actuaries Research Institute’s Mortality and Longevity Strategic Research Program Steering Committee (MLPSC) began to ponder what it means for the future. Was the coronavirus pandemic just a temporary shock to U.S. mortality with mortality quickly returning to prepandemic levels upon its conclusion or a lingering factor in future U.S. mortality from the potential occurrence of new coronavirus variants, post-COVID-19 conditions (“long COVID”), deferral of needed health care treatment, a fatigued health care system and other elements? Only time will provide the answers to these questions.

Description: This webcast will explore hedge strategies that can take advantage of synergies with existing business, improve liquidity and collateral management, incorporate opportunistic design-making, and reflect a company’s appetite for certain risks where excess returns can be earned.

Description: Following recent market volatility and regulatory changes, market data and market-consistent economic scenarios are at the core of the valuation of liabilities and market risk benefits under regimes such as IFRS 17 and Long Duration Targeted Improvements. This webcast will explore options available to insurance companies to establish stable long-term volatility assumptions and discuss how the choice of financial data can impact the calibration and the simulation of credit spread scenarios.

Description: Our panelists will explore fixed income topics from an actuarial perspective. We'll start with the basics of bonds, including sensitivity measures like duration and higher moments. Then, we'll discuss bond ALM characteristics, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of incorporating various bonds into a portfolio. Finally, we'll cover actuarial modeling considerations, such as reinvestments, defaults, expenses, and other assumptions. We encourage the audience to ask questions throughout the presentation and we hope you can join us for an engaging discussion!

Description: This webcast will explore hedge strategies that can take advantage of synergies with existing business, improve liquidity and collateral management, incorporate opportunistic design-making, and reflect a company’s appetite for certain risks where excess returns can be earned.

Description: Many retirement actuaries have experience developing, implementing, and monitoring Liability Driven Investing (LDI) strategies for plan sponsors. These strategies typically involve modifying a plan’s investment strategy to remove a significant portion of the investment and interest rate risk now or at some point in the future when specific triggers are met. The tactics often involve the use of fixed income assets to cash flow and/or duration match the liabilities. In the spirit of helping actuaries expand their roles in an evolving defined contribution world, this article explores the application of LDI and derisking strategies within defined contribution and individual retirement accounts. The economic theory behind this approach is called the lifecycle hypothesis, or lifecycle finance. The benefits of the lifecycle finance method are that it provides a safe approach to save for retirement and a secure source of floor income during retirement. Similar to pension plans, each individual has his or her own idiosyncratic needs, wants, and risks that should be considered. Actuaries are uniquely situated to help defined contribution plan sponsors, individuals, and even themselves implement the lifecycle finance approach by developing and distributing tools and methods that focus on income (rather than wealth), LDI strategies, and personalization.