Description: Financial planning and analysis (FP&A) has become increasingly important to the life insurance industry in recent years. Insurance companies must navigate complex changes in financial reporting and capital requirements to manage risk effectively. Furthermore, technological growth has changed the landscape of the theoretical capabilities of FP&A; however, many FP&A areas struggle to implement the sophisticated modeling techniques required to manage the long-term liabilities associated with life and annuity products.

Description: This session will consider how catastrophic gaps in risk management practices contributed to the failure of regional banks in the first half of 2023. Panelists will explore ERM practices and potential corrective actions, based on insurance industry and pension plan best practices, that could have mitigated against the failures.

Description: Deciding where to spend that next dollar of capital is at the heart of financial management. Executive teams regularly grapple with decisions on whether to purchase a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, invest in growing a distribution channel, expand into a new geographic area, or develop a new product, among many. The great news is there is no shortage of sound financial theory and logical rationale for making these transformational decisions. Yet business literature is filled with examples of decisions that did not meet expectations, sometimes materially missing the mark when comparing experience to assumptions. This is particularly the case with mergers and acquisitions, where multiple studies have shown that a sizable majority of such transactions do not achieve their intended outcomes. While some of the disappointing returns are attributable to random chance and unfortunate circumstances, a material number of them can be traced back to cognitive issues that arose during the decision-making process. Mental shortcuts or heuristics taken by individual decision-makers in evaluating information, as well as organizational dynamics such as groupthink both contribute to sub-optimal choices involving significant outlays of money. Being aware of these and having established protocols to mitigate against them can substantially improve decision-making around capital allocation and reduce misallocation of funds. In this session, the panelists discuss several common cognitive biases that can adversely impact the capital allocation decision process, introducing the notions of time, accounting convention, positivity, hierarchy, and social proof in describing them. Historical case examples of sub-optimal capital allocation are then explored, identifying the contributing behavioral factors including the simultaneous confluence of multiple factors. The panelists will close the session with several suggestions for attendees to consider for incorporation into their decision-making processes. At the conclusion of the session, attendees will be able to: - Learn common cognitive biases that impact capital allocation decisions - Differentiate which biases impact different aspects of the capital allocation process - Build awareness of biases affecting capital allocation decision models - Mitigate cognitive biases present in decision making processes

Description: This session will focus on what is new and coming at the Appointed Actuary (e.g., Actuarial Guideline ((AG)) 53, equity testing, etc.). We will provide highlights from the updated AAT Practice Note. A particular focus will be paid to asset classes that have received regulatory attention recently ((e.g., commercial mortgage loans, collatoralized loan oblications (CLOs), etc.)).

Description: Insurers have long relied on scenario analysis to understand the long-term impacts of potential business decisions, but the advent of rapidly changing market environments and a growing desire to optimize capital has spurred business leaders to leverage new tools in order to explore potential options.

Description: The article introduces a cashflow matching strategic asset allocation (SAA) framework for life insurers. Given the recent shift to higher interest rates after two decades of persistent low interest rates, insurers have an opportunity to enhance their asset liability management by rebalancing asset portfolios to narrow duration gaps and attain higher risk-adjusted yields. The framework aims to align investment objectives with economic, regulatory, and rating agency requirements. It prioritizes cashflow matching as the primary optimization goal and incorporates security-level asset information to assist portfolio managers in executing SAA seamlessly. The article highlights the benefits of the cashflow matching SAA framework, including greater attention to cashflow matching, unbiased results, readily executable strategies, and stable economic reserves. A case study is included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the framework in improving risk-adjusted return and cashflow matching for a representative liability block.

Description: How insurers can include a liquidity score and liquidity stress scenarios as part of their asset liability management (ALM) protocol.

Description: This article will examine four approaches under two different methods (eight in total) used to combat the non-additivity of key rates and will compare them under a number of rate environments.

Description: This article will examine four approaches under two different methods (eight in total) used to combat the non-additivity of key rates and will compare them under a number of rate environments.

Description: This research report summarizes methodologies used for yield curve extrapolation to value liability cash flows that extend beyond the maximum observavble portion of the yield curve.