Description: This article discusses the risk-sharing arrangements provided by a number of different types of hybrid pensions, focusing on hybrid designs in the United States, Canada and the Netherlands, with particular emphasis on the New Brunswick (Canada) shared risk plan.

Description: Read the October 2017 issue of Health Watch, published by the Health Section. Practical information for actuaries, articles impact sections, section activities.

Description: This article discusses Internal Revue Code, ‘IRC,’ Sections 7702 and 7702A with respect to the implementation of the 2001 CSO Mortality Table, which must be used in the calculations for policies issued on or after January 1, 2006. “The insurance industry has requested guidance from the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service on the proper application of the current computational rules to the 2001 CSO Mortality Table but, to date, such guidance has not been provided. Therefore, the Taxation Section established the 2001 CSO Maturity Age Task Force, the members of which authored this article, to propose methodologies that would be actuarially acceptable under Sections 7702 and 7702A of the Code for calculations under contracts that do not provide for actual maturity before age 100.” This article summarizes the task force recommendations.

Description: This article reviews the dynamics of surrender risk, briefly discusses current valuations in the Interest Rate option markets and presents some tailored structured hedging instruments that can be used to manage this risk.

Description: This article describes behavioral finance and its relevance in identifying analytics and processes suitable for a control environment for the actuarial aspects of an insurance company.

Description: The article addresses the safe harbor guidance provided in Notice 2016-63 for 2017 CSO contracts satisfying the section 7702 reasonable mortality requirements

Description: Enterprise risk management (ERM) needs to be seen in perspective of other management priorities and is not first in the hierarchy of corporate needs.

Description: This article is a companion to “They Go Bump in the Night: Life Insurance Policies and the Law of Material Change,” an article written by John T. Adney and Craig R. Springfield (May 2012 Taxing Times Supplement) that describes the various material change rules found in the Code, highlighting the complexities insurers face in navigating through these rules when a life insurance contract is materially changed. The Adney and Springfield article also addresses the difficulties in interpreting the tax law requirements under the various effective date rules contained in the Code sections affecting life insurance contracts.

Description: Discussion of the March 1, 2013 Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) release of PLR 201309011, which addresses the application of the section 817(h) diversification requirements to variable contracts that have invested in illiquid investment vehicles (the “Funds”).

Description: The author uses football to demonstrate the axiom of downside risk, and how it can be applied in business situations when considering whether to use a conservative or aggressive approach.