Description: The author discusses an interpretation of the surrender charge limitations specified in New York’s Regulation 77 which increases the maximum allowable surrender charges for renewal years. This interpretation was presented to and accepted by the New York State Insurance Department.

Description: The chairperson reviewed the accomplishments from the prior year and provided a preview of upcoming events.

Description: This article discusses the characteristics of companies dedicated to being leaders in the Term market and the role that reinsurers play.

Description: New Chairperson’s Corner

Description: This article highlights the interaction between pricing and corporate. There is a move toward principle-based reserving standards in the United States.

Description: This article discusses the The Assumption Development and Governance Group (sponsored by the Financial Reporting and Product Development Sections).

Description: In actuarial work, we are frequently confronted with problems with more than one apparently reasonable answer. This article deals with one of these, where the Federal DAC cost can be applied in an apparently reasonable, but incorrect, manner.

Description: A paper demonstrating how to obviate the need for market timing strategies in variable annuity products by judicious use of product design. The paper presents the premise behind the product design, provides numerical examples, then explores possible extensions of the concept to produce more sophisticated variable annuity plans based on guarantees of investment outcomes.

Description: This article highlights emerging accelerated underwriting (AUW) monitoring trends and best practices that carriers can implement for monitoring their own AUW programs. It includes high-level mortality slippage findings based on a reinsured study population comprised of both pre- and post-issue auditing methods (random holdouts and post-issue audits) conducted on over 33,000 AUW applicants over the past decade.

Description: This article is a summary of a debate at a Southeastern Actuarial Club meeting that looked at the appropriateness of secondary guarantees in UL products.