Description: In the fourth quarter of 2022, publicly traded life insurers reported on their financial and operational activities, which included a downturn in income from alternative investments, the continuing impact of COVID, the impact of equity market returns on variable annuity products, and growth trends related to pension risk transfer transactions.

Description: This essay collection examines how changing family dynamics shape retirement security, offering insights on demographic trends, policy design, and actuarial strategy—because retirement is the ultimate family affair.

Description: The Mortality Improvement Life Working Group released a recommendation for a set of improvement factors that vary by gender and attained age to be used in conjunction with the 2008 Valuation Basic table or the 2015 Valuation Basic table for AG-38 purposes.

Description: The purpose of this survey was to gather data on how a sampling of the life insurance industry makes decisions involving lab tests. This most significant conclusions were that protective value was the biggest driving force and the chief underwriter played the biggest role.

Description: This is the third report in a series on the current state and future opportunity of the retirement market in China. In this report, edition three of the series, you will learn about the increased longevity in China. Almost one third of those surveyed anticipate living to age 90 or older. As a result, China has a significant need for retirement planning. Educating consumers on their retirement options is key and it was found that 88% of those surveyed have engaged in at least one type of retirement planning activity.

Description: The global doubling of information content has been estimated to occur at a rate of every 12 hours, and conceivably faster. This ‘infowhelm’ is a double-edged sword for insurers. While maximization of the global knowledge base can fuel innovation, it can occur only in the context of reasonable cost for a higher benefit. The insurance industry – underwriters and actuaries in particular – are challenged to constantly examine new innovations that promise to raise confidence and protective value for insurability, within legal limits. This report aims to be the first of several to alert the SOA of promising innovations for the profession.

Description: The objective of this paper is to provide a practical guide with concrete case studies to help actuaries implement artificial intelligence and machine learning (AIML) to help accelerate the speed of analysis for life and annuity actuarial modeling. We do so by researching the existing literature regarding AIML and its applicability to stochastic modeling and exploring case studies.

Description: This report is a discussion of the significant challenges involved in attempting to research with robust analysis the impact of disparities in health care access, cost and quality of care on financial wellness across racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and other demographic groups in the U.S. for reasons other than or in addition to income, wealth or employment status.

Description: The SOA Research Institute along with the International Section, and the Social Insurance and Public Finance Section are pleased to make available a research report that compares international and domestic mandated paid family and medical leave programs. Special thanks to both Sections for their sponsorship of this effort.

Description: This report presents research into recent population mortality experience compiled by the Retirement Plans Experience Committee (RPEC) of the Society of Actuaries Research Institute as it pertains to development of mortality improvement assumptions for measuring obligations of retirement programs in the United States.