Description: Article discussing the risk focused exam approach incorporated in the Financial Condition Examiners Handbook.

Description: An overview of reinsurance training class provided to the Bermuda Monetary Authority (Authority) and Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago (Central Bank) covering all aspects of reinsurance. Article also provides an overview of initiatives that the two regulators (Authority and Central Bank) are involved with.

Description: The author compares and contrasts methodologies used for value investing and enterprise risk management.

Description: A high level review of recent developments in the area of professional standards of practice on Modeling, with exploration of a few of the contentious issues.

Description: Basic Qualification of Life Insurance Contracts under the Internal Revenue Code

Description: A discussion of risk-relevant resources available at the Society of Actuaries Risk Management Task Force Web site

Description: Recent advances in mortality modeling have enabled applicant-specific quantification of mortality risk in life insurance applicants using laboratory and physical measurements. Relative to more conventional underwriting, this approach identifies a small population of significantly under-priced policy and a much larger, cross-subsidizing group whose risk is presently overestimated. Applicants placed in the highest percentile by this scoring methodology are more than 10X as likely to die in a given period as their demographic peers, and represent approximately 5% of short-term claims. Implications for product design are substantial in both the short- and long-term, as the possibilities for adverse selection grow, and the opportunity for fully individualized pricing raises the more distant prospect of products with as many rate classes as applicants.

Description: Discussion of the need for long term care reinsurance and the types of services needed and available.

Description: The author describes the 29th. edition of the International Summer School, held in Lausanne, Switzerland, organized by the Swiss Association of Actuaries.

Description: Discussion of the economics of a possible H5N1 pandemic, and its impact on Life, Health, and Property and Casualty insurers, in terms of areas of risk, especially underwritng risk, operations risk, and market risk.