Description: This 2000 word essay won the Joint Management Risk Section 2016 Essay Prize, summarizing the present challenges, potential solutions and Actuarial opportunities.

Description: Update on issues, priorities and key messages from the Joint CAS / CIA / SOA Risk Management Section Council.

Description: This article discusses index separate accounts and their use by insurance companies for group pension clients, including product design and regulatory developments.

Description: The author, head of Alternatives Investment Specialists at Fortis Investments, recently presented a research paper on the potential benefits and possible pitfalls of investing in illiquid assets. This newsletter provides a brief summary of that paper. The full paper is available upon request.

Description: Describes how the mantra of 'tax cuts will pay for themselves" along with the political unwillingness to cut spending (extant since the 1980s), has led to this increasing debt problem in the U.S., reaching $17 trillion at time of writing. Other countries are behaving in a similar fashion, and it can be only a matter of time before the globe may reach another crisis, this time based on excessive government debt coupled with fewer interested investors.

Description: Read the February 2017 issue of Risks and Rewards published by the Investment Section.

Description: Statutory Statement of Accounting Principle SSAP No. 35 prescribes accounting for guarantee fund assessments and potential future premium tax credits against these assessments. This article discusses the deductibility of these assessments for federal income tax purposes, providing updates on recent court cases and regulatory guidance.

Description: A discussion of third-party summons, particularly those issued in promoter examinations. Satisfaction of the IRS's request for information outside of court in the most cost-effective manner is usually the best course.

Description: A summary discussion of those items listed in the 2012-2013 Priority Guidance Plan issued by the IRS and Treasury that address tax issues of concern to life insurance companies.

Description: The author uses a reprint of an article from the very first edition of the “News from the Individual Life Insurance and Annuity Product Development Section” and assistance from the Taxation Section Council and Friends of that Council to decipher the changes between the life insurance tax environment back in the 1980s compared to today.