Description: The article provides an overview of the federal tax treatment of long-term care insurance contracts, including a brief history of the tax treatment of long-term care insurance, the requirements that must be satisfied in order to be treated as qualified long-term care insurance under the Internal Revenue Code, and a brief discussion of qualified long-term care combination products and chronic and terminal illness accelerated death benefits offered under life insurance contracts.

Description: This article provides an update, as of October 2023, on Financial Reporting Section research projects in process and those recently completed.

Description: In 2021, Deloitte and the SOA conducted a research study on emerging technologies in which the current use and future outlook of these technologies for the actuarial profession were evaluated.

Description: As a follow-up to a previous five-part series on accounting for ceded reinsurance under LDTI, this article focuses on one issue that has, until now, been left without a general solution—how to measure the reinsured portion of a direct loss from capping a net premium ratio or flooring a liability. After acknowledging limited guidance on the issue, the article describes the various events that can lead to a loss, how reinsurance protects against loss, and how that is translated into formulas for measuring the reinsured portion of a loss.

Description: All things considered, caution needs to be applied to the use of so-called “standard” mortality tables. Sharpening up these blunt estimates by using individual assumptions reveals material differences in the structure of longevity, both between plans and within plans.

Description: The article discusses the continued popularity of indexed UL insurance and possible reasons why a company's actual indexed UL earnings may be below their original pricing expectations for the product. The article discusses several key items that may be the source of that underperformance (e.g., hedge ineffectiveness, policyholder behavior) and the need to monitor earnings and perform analyses to better understand those potential sources.

Description: Letter from the chairperson of the section recapping 2020 accomplishments and stating 2021 goals.

Description: An introductory article for the June 2022 issue of the General Insurance Insights e-newsletter.

Description: Adjusting GAAP reinsurance reserves to account for reinsurance protection against the events that trigger direct reserve constraints (such as NPR capping or LFPB flooring) can be a challenge any time. Ceding a block of business that is already in force increases the challenge—especially if one of those constraints was already present at inception of the reinsurance. This article builds on previous work (published in the July 2022 and June 2023 issues) to show how to measure initial reinsurance reserves in a way that complies with AICPA guidance and prepares for effective measurement of subsequent changes in the effects of the constraints.

Description: The chairperson for the marketing and distribution section discusses the section welcome call and outline future topics and themes for the year head.