Description: This article discusses the new profession of financial engineering and the fit of actuaries in this profession.

Description: This article is a call for work that has been done in stochastic modeling and papers in the area of of stochastic modeling of investment returns in respect of the maturity and mortality guarantees offered on segregated fund and variable annuity products. These will be used in the symposium on stochastic modeling in September 1999 sponsored by the CIA, SOA and Actuarial Foundation.

Description: The article discusses under which conditions it is appropriate to use the true probability distribution or the risk-neutral probability distribution for interest rate scenario generation. It addresses which should be used for valuation purposes and strategy development.

Description: Dynamically Hedging Insurance Product Risk by Marshall C. Greenbaum from Risks and Rewards Newsletter, April 2000, Issue No. 34. A dynamic hedging program cab be an effective solution to insurance company market risk management problems.

Description: The author notes that equity investment management is often classified into a number of different styles, the simplest being growth and value. In discussing both approaches the author also brings in the concept of momentum and concludes that momentum should be an additional parameter reviewed in the investment decision.

Description: The author notes that “insurance companies have been in the business of risk management for hundreds of years. The latest trend towards risk management in banks is both new to insurance companies and very old hat—new because it applies new techniques at least new to the last half century and old hat because many risk management techniques are so old hat to insurance companies that they are almost unconsciously performing them.”

Description: As equity markets decline and become more volatile, the likelihood of significant guaranteed benefit claims increases, while increases from mortality and expense fees declines. The article illustrates how to use a derivative contract, a properly structured total return swap, to turn a company's uncertain M&E revenue patterns into predictable revenue.

Description: What Do You Mean You Are An FRM From GARP? by David N. Ingram from Risks and Rewards Newsletter, February 2002, Issue No. 38.

Description: The article is a summary of Session 9PD at the Society of Actuaries annual meeting in New Orleans in October 2001. Terminal funding the purchase of annuities by pension plans usually at plan termination and stable value GIC's became major product lines in the 1980's. This article describes the changes in the those products, the markets and regulatory environment.

Description: This article discusses market declines and the impact that white collar crime or gross dishonesty in financial reporting can have on market declines.