Description: Session 2H: Reinsurance Market Update

Description: This is a session for liability side actuaries that want a summary of asset valuation principlesTopics to be discussed: why it's important in today's world to know both sides of the balance sheet.Discussion of yield curves including spot rates, forward rates, coupon rates and bootstrappingDiscussion of duration calculations including explanation of modified duration for contracts with embedded options, key rate durations.Summarize today's regulatory environment in the context of embedded options including MRB, VM21, and VM22Next, we will dive into duration profiles of different asset classes including, CLOs - floating rate, RMBS (negative convexity), traditional bonds, and swaps.Lastly, we will discuss risk neutral scenarios, martingale tests, and applications in hedging MRBs.

Description: In this session, we will examine AM Best's credit rating methodology, the evaluation of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Programs for insurers, and how ERM evaluations are incorporated into ratings. AM Best staff will present the results of a study of AM Best-rated health insurers' ERM programs.

Description: Deciding where to spend that next dollar of capital is at the heart of financial management. Executive teams regularly grapple with decisions on whether to purchase a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, invest in growing a distribution channel, expand into a new geographic area, or develop a new product, among many. The great news is there is no shortage of sound financial theory and logical rationale for making these transformational decisions. Yet business literature is filled with examples of decisions that did not meet expectations, sometimes materially missing the mark when comparing experience to assumptions. This is particularly the case with mergers and acquisitions, where multiple studies have shown that a sizable majority of such transactions do not achieve their intended outcomes. While some of the disappointing returns are attributable to random chance and unfortunate circumstances, a material number of them can be traced back to cognitive issues that arose during the decision-making process. Mental shortcuts or heuristics taken by individual decision-makers in evaluating information, as well as organizational dynamics such as groupthink both contribute to sub-optimal choices involving significant outlays of money. Being aware of these and having established protocols to mitigate against them can substantially improve decision-making around capital allocation and reduce misallocation of funds. In this session, the panelists discuss several common cognitive biases that can adversely impact the capital allocation decision process, introducing the notions of time, accounting convention, positivity, hierarchy, and social proof in describing them. Historical case examples of sub-optimal capital allocation are then explored, identifying the contributing behavioral factors including the simultaneous confluence of multiple factors. The panelists will close the session with several suggestions for attendees to consider for incorporation into their decision-making processes. At the conclusion of the session, attendees will be able to: - Learn common cognitive biases that impact capital allocation decisions - Differentiate which biases impact different aspects of the capital allocation process - Build awareness of biases affecting capital allocation decision models - Mitigate cognitive biases present in decision making processes

Description: What do companies look at when they ultimately decide to pursue financial reinsurance? Or when they decide to develop a new product? This presentation will explore enterprise profitability frameworks and their impact on strategic decision-making. Having the right metrics and profitability measurement approach is crucial for life insurers to drive alignment with stakeholders on top-level objectives and frame trade-offs between competing enterprise financial goals.

Description: Where once an insurer's chief investment officer (CIO) reigned supreme over assets-aided and sometimes hindered by the involvement of a chief risk officer (CRO)-these days managing portfolio risk and return seems to be an altogether more complex affair. No less of this complexity has come from the expansion by insurers into illiquid assets in the last decade. Moving away from traditional assets has raised scrutiny of liquidity risk management, but how do insurers tackle this? In a world 'brimming with large and growing portfolio allocations to illiquid private assets,' liquidity management concerns are distinct from a typical CRO's portfolio or asset risk orientation. There's a need to look at all aspects of a fund's liquidity demands and sources, such as top-down asset allocation, bottom-up private market deal-making activities, and internal and external operations. A dedicated liquidity management function should also be able to identify both explicit and potential liquidity demands and sources and, in particular, stay in touch with market movements and the regulatory environment. It should identify, evaluate and keep at-the-ready possible external liquidity facilities-for example, the secondary market for private equity stakes, a collateralized portfolio liquidity line, a repurchase agreement or a futures program. A high-quality liquidity management team can also identify when a fund has too much liquidity, the cost of being overly cautious and how to put excess liquidity to work.

Description: The world of climate risk disclosures has seen dizzying levels of change in the last few years. In 2023, many regulators have publicly issued guidance on what insurance companies and other FIs should look to disclose. So what are we seeing in these disclosures and how do we use this information? Join our panel of experts to learn about the evolution of U.S. life insurance industry's climate disclosures and how insurers of all sizes and complexities are responding to NAIC's requirements.

Description: Article discussing the benefits of the Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst, CERA, credential.

Description: This document is a research study conducted by Derrick FUNG Wing Hong, PhD, FSA, CERA, from The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, sponsored by The Society of Actuaries Research Institute. It investigates the impact of COVID-19 on insurers and the relationship between Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) sophistication and insurers' resilience.

Description: This session will consider how catastrophic gaps in risk management practices contributed to the failure of regional banks in the first half of 2023. Panelists will explore ERM practices and potential corrective actions, based on insurance industry and pension plan best practices, that could have mitigated against the failures.