Description: Discover investing trends across the life and health industry as insurers seek to navigate rapidly changing rate and market environments. BlackRock will present results from its Peer Risk Study, which models industry holdings based on statutory filings at the CUSIP level. Through the Aladdin risk modeling software, expect a production of deep insights into insurer portfolio risk and return characteristics, as well as exploring how they have evolved. Keep an eye out for a partner to present on the evolution from their perspective. Start learning about what is happening on the asset side of the balance sheet across the industry.

Description: The NAIC continues to move ahead with the GOES (generator of economic scenarios) project for the transition to a new real-world economic scenario generator (ESG) prescribed for principle-based reserve and capital calculations. This session will provide a detailed project update from the regulator and practitioner perspective. An overview of model details and methods that have been decided, what remains to be determined, and the projected timeline for implementation will be discussed. Recent developments such as the industry field test and NAIC model office testing to assess the potential impact on reserves and capital will be discussed as will a review of the implementation of the stochastic exclusion ratio test (SERT). We will also discuss the components of the ESG model and the associated scenario sets the NAIC has exposed with respect to target and acceptance criteria. At the conclusion of this session, attendees will understand the current status of the NAIC GOES project and its projected timeline and will be able to describe the components of the model and how the model has been calibrated and validated. Attendees will also appreciate the remaining challenges in bringing the model to full implementation.

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: The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) project for the transition to a new real-world economic scenario generator (ESG) prescribed for principle-based reserve and capital calculations selected a vendor in the fall of 2020. The American Academy of Actuaries and other interested parties have been assisting the NAIC in this transition. Over the past four years, extensive analysis, model validation, and comparison work has been done. There have been many updates on the project but few opportunities to obtain an in-depth understanding of the new features of the new ESG and its impact on reserves and capital. Practitioners are very interested in the questions: - How different are the scenarios from the Academy/Society of Actuaries ESG and the new NAIC ESG? - How different are the models and techniques used to create the scenarios in both generators? - Is there a significant difference in capital and reserve requirements for model office tests between the two ESGs? - Are there concerns with the new NAIC ESG? The session addresses each of these questions in detail. At the conclusion of the session attendees will appreciate the key differences between the model structure and scenario performance of the two ESGs and will understand the differences in capital and reserve requirements for model office tests across the two ESGs. Attendees will also learn how the initial yield curve fitting differs between the models, about fund mapping considerations, and the interpretability of parameters in the new NAIC model.

Description: Come discuss modeling costs and its governance, as well as introduce some platforms for more granular asset modeling.

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: The surge in interest rates over the past few years presents opportunities for life insurers to enhance their Asset and Liability Management (ALM) positions through asset rebalancing to narrow the duration gap and secure higher risk-adjusted yields. This webcast introduces a robust, efficient and readily-executable, liability-driven strategic asset allocation (SAA) framework and implementation considerations. At the conclusion of the webcast, attendees will learn about the key objectives and practical considerations for a successful SAA.

Description: Come discuss how reinsurers can work side by side with insurer to better develop products, and lift in the areas that reinsurers have more experience, help matching products with distributions (or vice versa) and provide advanced technologies associated with tools and software. The speakers will also present Direct to Consumer plan from various points of view, i.e., distributors, carriers, and reinsurers. Some case studies will also be presented where traditional reinsurers and asset-intensive reinsurers helped insurers bring products to life.

Description: Global life insurance companies started to utilize both external and internal reinsurance for a holistic group-wide capital and risk management. This is more evident in increasing use of reinsurance affiliates in Bermuda and/or reinsuring business to Bermuda-based external reinsurers.Come explore how varying and often competing objectives of capital and risk management is balanced or optimized through the use of internal and external reinsurance from a view of global direct life insurance and annuity writers who will present cases and share their objectives, concerns, and experience in a relatively comparable structure. Presenters will have a brief panel discussion on a couple of hot topics such as on-going enhancement of Bermuda's capital and reserve regulatory framework and use of internal reinsurance.Get ready to learn practical and emerging views of insurers on the effective use of internal and external reinsurance for risk and capital management.

Description: Gather with members and non-members in the China actuarial community to discuss recent topics and related issues in areas such as macroeconomic sharing, pension, investment, product strategy, and more.