Description: Hot Topics in Setting Pension Return Assumptions is the third in a series, following Mathematics of Pension Return Assumption and Inflation, focusing on Effects, Forecasts, and Role in Pension Valuations. What time horizon is more appropriate for Capital Market Assumption (CMA) forecasts: mid-term or long-term time horizon, or a blend of both? How do we map the asset classes of a plan's own investment policy to the asset classes of investment forecasters' CMAs? If we use asset-smoothing for valuation assets, should we use market-driven expected returns or smoothed/average versions of them?

Description: Driver-based forecasting is a powerful tool to predict and estimate future outcomes. In recent years, driver-based forecasting has gained significant attention as a technique for actuaries to forecast the financial performance of insurance companies. Often there can be frustration around the ability to use forecasts to manage the business. However the objective of a driver-based forecast is to break down historic and projected movement based on the key drivers which impact the results. The key is to understand what the key drivers are on forecasts and what is the relative level of impact and influence we have on the drivers. Listen in on a discussion on the core principles of driver-based forecasting, including how to identify key drivers, collect accurate data, and leverage the latest technology to generate forecasts that traditional models can't match. Explore with us the various driver-based models and how actuaries can leverage them to enhance their decision-making capabilities. Then join the conversation about the challenges actuaries face when implementing this technique and how to mitigate these problems.

Description: As the size of the life reinsurance market in Bermuda has grown to over half a trillion dollars at the end of 2021, more and more actuaries are getting involved with this 21 square mile North Atlantic island in one way or the other. Come explore a fundamental understanding of the Bermuda solvency framework and an overview of its upcoming changes.

Description: A panel of actuaries and investment experts share their experience with the AG53 requirements for Asset Adequacy Testing. Discuss challenging areas in the inaugural year of the consideration of complex assets as well as discuss potential areas of future regulatory expectations

Description: In this session, presenters will share the impacts of transition to IFRS 17 on equity and various KPIs across insurance companies (Life & P&C), as well as share some observations of what the IFRS 17 landscape looks like across different global regions. The session will conclude with lessons learned and expectations for emerging practices under IFRS 17 globally.

Description: Gain a high-level understanding on how long-duration targeted improvement (LDTI) impacts insurance products and earnings. Explore highlights on secondary impacts to companies due to additional complexity of LDTI, such as a need for a source of earnings analysis. Then dive into the details and hear an explanation on how earnings emergence differs for each type of life and annuity product impacted by LDTI. Finally, discuss the impact -to-earnings volatility under LDTI for each product type. Close the session by connecting how the investor story changes with all the impacts discussed during the session.You should walk away with a good understanding of LDTI earnings emergence, which is a topic that has very limited thought leadership available today.

Description: Join a discussion on the tax implications for direct writers ceding annuity blocks for both onshore and offshore reinsurance arrangements. Get an introduction to the tax consequences of the risk transfer of annuity features and guarantees to reinsurers to reinsurers that are U.S.-based and not U.S. domiciled.

Description: With large public filers having adopted LDTI in 2023, company practices are continuing to evolve as it relates to experience monitoring, assumption unlocking, as well as both internal and external communication and disclosures related to assumptions. In this diverse session featuring representatives from both insurance companies as well as industry analysts, we'll explore how companies approach emerging experience in a given year through a case study approach. The moderator will explore various topics such as off-cycle experience monitoring, experience outliers, simplifications and approximations, and materiality considerations. Each 'what-if' scenario will start with a prompt from the moderator, discussion among the industry panelists as to how they would approach the situation within their own organization, followed by commentary from the analysts as to how they might expect companies to respond in each case. Audience participation will be encouraged to explore potential alternative approaches in an engaging, interactive session.

Description: S&P Global published a revised insurance capital model in November 2023. The revisions add considerable complexity to their insurance capital model and rely more on companies to fill out the detailed model inputs. In return, the new model allows for better risk differentiation and an overall better assessment of insurance company risk-adjusted capitalization. In this session we will review the new capital model in-depth, considering its implications for capital management and product development. By the end of the session, attendees should have a deeper understanding of the revised criteria of the S&P insurance capital model, including its most important risk drivers and how it relates to the AM Best 'BCAR' and the NAIC RBC capital models.

Description: IUL continues to be the strongest selling UL product. Companies have great profit/pricing expectations, but are those results being achieved? Learn about potential areas of underperformance for IUL including behavior related issues, hedging inefficiency, and mortality issues. The session will also discuss ways to monitor these risks and discuss different means to address potential issues of underperformance in hedging, pricing and in force earnings.