Description: Technology now supports customized non-level death benefits which help consumers optimize their coverage and cost. Creating individual policies and individually pricing them for a level premium quote is the start of personalizing and optimizing coverage and cost for consumers and pricing life insurance policies at the individual consumer level --- a revolution for actuaries.

Description: Part 2 of the article continues providing data on why IUL income streams need to be managed and suggests techniques that insurance companies could provide to policyholders and advisors to do so. The author also offers his research data free of charge to any actuary who contacts him to request it.

Description: Understanding the volatility associated with audit samples, as well as breaking out the different contributors to estimated mortality impact are vital tools in helping actuaries and underwriters make informed decisions about less invasive underwriting programs. This article walks through a sample example demonstrating how to calculate these metrics.

Description: Long-term guarantees place unanticipated burdens on companies because of the degree to which the environment can change. These risks are compounded when combined with estimation of policyholder behavior, especially when solid experience data is not available. When risks are properly reflected, long-term guarantees do not always provide value to the customer in excess of the manufacturing cost. The product development actuary is challenged to compare customer value to company cost and use that measurement to identify novel ways to design products to better serve customers.

Description: The article summarizes 2013 survey results of company assumptions for term products in the post-level period. The focus is on product design, shock lapse assumptions, and mortality deterioration assumptions. This article features highlights from the larger SOA-sponsored research project on this topic published in 2013 that compiled end-of-2012 assumption data from 41 companies. This content may prove useful to product development actuaries as they consider their current post-level term assumptions.