Description: This article provides a brief history of David Holland, retired vice chairman, president and CEO of Munich American Reassurance Company MARC.

Description: Discussion of the evolving role of reinsurance in driving business decisions for the direct side, with particular emphasis on underwriting and risk classification and the emphasis on automatic versus facultative business.

Description: Feature article discussing the events of the recent Living to 100 Symposium.

Description: Feature article discussing valuable resources available to the actuary to guide them through the reinsurance treaty development process.

Description: Feature article discussing the current state of reinsurance for the variable annuity market.

Description: Feature article discussing preferred methods of communication.

Description: Feature article discussing the events of the Canadian Reinsurance Conference.

Description: This article reports on a session at an underwritering meeting in which the panel included an actuary, an underwriter and a marketer. Each presented his point of view about the status of the insurance business and the difficulties of increasing production.

Description: This article describes the LEARN program which provides state regulators with a convenient means of obtaining the knowledge base needed to understand how reinsurance works. It is an update of the article originally published in the July 2011 issue Reinsurance News.

Description: Suicide is one of the ten leading causes of death in the United States and the only one of those causes that is trending in the wrong direction over the last 15 years. This article examines several aspects of suicide in the United States with a focus on its impact on the insurance industry. The findings were compiled from publicly available data through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from internal RGA data, and also from interviews with topic experts. The article highlights the difference in suicide rates between the general population and the insured population, the proportion of claims from suicide, the spike in suicide rates at the end of the contestability (or exemption period), and current thoughts from counseling experts on prevention. It also demonstrates an increase in suicide rates during times of economic turmoil.