Description: The Society of Actuaries are once again offering a seminar that investigates all aspects of life insurance, annuity and long term care product tax compliance. Developed by the Taxation Section, participants will be brought up-to-date on recent Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidance and learn about the newest tax issues related to product design and administration. Legal, IRS and product development experts will provide vital insights into the challenges of developing and administering products within the requirements of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), and allow ample opportunities for networking, questions and information exchange.

Description: Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2018-12, commonly referred to as long duration targeted improvements (LDTI), is the most significant GAAP accounting change impacting the life insurance industry in the past 40 years. This article discusses the impact of LDTI on variable annuities (VA) and fixed indexed annuities (FIA) from a product development and in-force management angle. Detailed discussion topics include hedging and ALM, product strategy and development, and pricing. LDTI will cause many VA and FIA writers to re-evaluate their hedging and asset liability management (ALM) strategy following the move to fair value accounting under the new MRB requirement. Stakeholder appetite for accounting volatility and resulting changes to hedging and ALM may trigger changes in product mix and designs. In addition to updating pricing infrastructure to handle the new requirements, pricing actuaries will need to produce analyses to educate stakeholders on the risks and pricing implications of any changes to designs, hedging and ALM.

Description: This article begins with an overview of how the tax treatment of partial exchanges has evolved over the last decade or so, including the concerns that led the Service to resist giving taxpayers carte blanche on such transactions.The new guidance shortens from 12 to six months the window following a partial exchange in which the transaction could be called into question, and simplifies the regime by de-linking it from the exceptions to the section 72q penalty tax.4 Finally, the guidance provides coordination with recent partial annuitization legislation and answers to other open issues. This article then summarizes Rev. Proc. 2011-38 and elaborates on why the features outlined above are important and helpful improvements over prior guidance.

Description: This article explains how one company, American Life of New York, is using innovative applications to improve and speed the underwriting process.

Description: The authors provide clarification, specifically related to the American Academy of Actuaries’ Annuity Reserves Working Group, to the article, “Statutory Reserving for Fixed Indexed Annuities with Guaranteed Lifetime Withdrawal Benefits,” published in the September 2012 issue of The Financial Reporter.

Description: June 2024, AG54 will begin for new RILA sales. This guidance requires companies to determine an interim value that is more aligned with the market value of the position on a daily basis. This discussion will talk through companies adoption of AG54, lessons learned, approaches and integration with the administration system. Additionally this session will discuss how AG54 impacts new product design, reserving and capital implications.

Description: Join us as we delve into the dynamic landscape of the Fixed Indexed Annuity industry. Presenters will discuss trends observed in recent FIA experience, observations from their own company's data, and findings from Milliman's FIA industry experience studies. Key results include a view of surrender behavior relative to market dynamics and comparisons with industry predictive models, serving as a benchmark to explore where industry experience aligns with expectations and where potential surprises have emerged. Through a combination of data-driven analysis and expert interpretation, attendees will gain valuable perspectives on the evolving FIA landscape, enabling them to make informed decisions to navigate future challenges.

Description: As the new VM-22 framework reshapes reserving for non-variable annuities, actuaries face both opportunities and challenges. Our latest insight and highlights what you need to know about assumption setting, model validation and asset optimization ahead of 2026.

Description: This session will address the risk management, reserving and capital issues associated with index-linked annuities including financial reporting considerations for FIAs and RILAs, benefits of combining VA and RILA hedging and reserving under VM-21, current and future challenges with FIA reserving under VM-22, potential capital redundancy for FIAs, RILA interim values under AG 54, NAIC economic scenario reform, asset modeling, fund mapping and more!

Description: This session is open to all, but targeted to pension actuaries looking to understand the mechanics of how PRT is priced by life insurance actuaries, as well as life insurance actuaries who wish to understand how the stream of expected benefit payments and Accrued Benefits Obligation is calculated by Retirement Actuaries. Pension Risk Transfer involves two distinct disciplines of the actuarial profession. To date, understanding the other side of Pension Risk Transfer has been limited. This session will attempt to clarify the mechanics of the other side of PRT and explain how an actuarial model consolidating the two separate sides can be built. Panelists will include a retirement consulting actuary who helps retirement plan sponsors bring their pension plans to market to purchase PRT, as well as an experienced life insurer who works to price PRT.