Description: The Committee on Finance Research makes available a research report exploring the mechanics and implementation of economic capital programs for life insurance companies. Discussion items include common methods for calculating economic capital advantages and disadvantages of each method.

Description: The Joint Risk Management Section is trying to develop better estimates of policyholder behavior in the tail [PBITT]. The mission of the PBITT working group is to examine and ultimately give guidance to actuaries on how to set policyholder assumptions in extreme scenarios. As part of its work, the PBITT working group issued its sixth survey to gather the range of assumptions actuaries use in pricing, reserving, and risk management of minimum guarantees on Variable Annuity products, such as death benefits, income benefits, withdrawal benefits and maturity benefits. This document contains the results of that survey.

Description: This paper looks at retirement income planning techniques currently practiced in North America, and then discusses contingencies that are generally omitted from the retirement needs analysis. From Retirement Needs Framework, M-RS00-1.

Description: This paper explores the advantages of annuitization as a protection against a long-lived retiree running out of money. From Retirement Needs Framework, M-RS00-1.

Description: This paper shows an approach whereby future asset returns and liabilities are modeled taking into account the probability of various returns. It develops an asset-smoothing approach that uses an expected return on the asset mix and averages both historical and projected asset values. From Current Pension Actuarial Practice in Light of Financial Economics Symposium, M-RS04-1.

Description: The University of Connecticut has developed a new enterprise risk management service for small local businesses.

Description: The authors take a deeper look at the long-standing motto of the Society of Actuaries, from John Ruskin, “The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances and demonstrations for impressions.”

Description: Discussion of Capital Market Modeling techniques

Description: Cautions against putting too much faith in financial models - such as the IASB's proposal to accrue future expected profits on the day a policy is issued.