Description: Recently, the SCAN Foundation, AARP, LeadingAge, and HHS funded economic modeling conducted by Milliman and the Urban Institute around LTC reform elements. The LTC industry has over the years also generated ideas to address the on-coming expansion of LTC needs in the U.S. For this article, we have brought together three individuals who have long involvement with LTC financing to discuss some of the recent ideas and provide some perspectives on their pluses and minuses.

Description: To penetrate the market of those who today are concerned about future long-term care needs, LTCI providers will need to combine strategies for financial sustainability with the consumer- driven product design focus of the early to mid-1990s.

Description: Feature article discussing how the insurance industry can better serve the middle income sector. The author cites LIMRA's latest study on personal ownership of life insurance which reveals an under-served and poorly served market. Improvements in marketing, distribution, and the issue process are the keys, in the author's opinion to improvement.

Description: This is an introduction to the SOA call for essays around risk strategies pertaining to the diverse risks found in retirement. We are pleased that these essays can be included in this issue of Pension Section News, along with a short interview with each author.

Description: There is a growing amount of “off-balance sheet” talent in the US and Global workforce. This spans from consultants and contractors, to gig workers and the crowd (both curated crowd and open crowd). One such example is Uber and Lyft workers. Insurance companies and the Actuarial profession have started to experiment with platforms such as Kaggle and this will continue to grow and evolve. This article explores these new sources of talent for companies, the implications to the actuarial function, benefits and challenges of the evolving workforce.

Description: description of theme of the 2017 Canadian Reinsurance Conference

Description: Interview with a global leader in life reinsurance. Includes background, thoughts on industry's challenges, trends, opportunities and thought re: leadership

Description: Life reinsurance activity in Bermuda has experienced rapid growth in recent years. This article explores the key drivers of this growth.

Description: The diary of Dirk Nieder, an actuary who traveled in Asia amid the COVID-19 pandemic, tying in what he saw in asia countries and developments from the west.

Description: Many retirement actuaries have experience developing, implementing, and monitoring Liability Driven Investing (LDI) strategies for plan sponsors. These strategies typically involve modifying a plan’s investment strategy to remove a significant portion of the investment and interest rate risk now or at some point in the future when specific triggers are met. The tactics often involve the use of fixed income assets to cash flow and/or duration match the liabilities. In the spirit of helping actuaries expand their roles in an evolving defined contribution world, this article explores the application of LDI and derisking strategies within defined contribution and individual retirement accounts. The economic theory behind this approach is called the lifecycle hypothesis, or lifecycle finance. The benefits of the lifecycle finance method are that it provides a safe approach to save for retirement and a secure source of floor income during retirement. Similar to pension plans, each individual has his or her own idiosyncratic needs, wants, and risks that should be considered. Actuaries are uniquely situated to help defined contribution plan sponsors, individuals, and even themselves implement the lifecycle finance approach by developing and distributing tools and methods that focus on income (rather than wealth), LDI strategies, and personalization.