Description: After years of discussion and debate, PrinciplesBased Reserving (PBR) is finally a reality. Small insurance companies have a unique opportunity to decide between electing for the company-wide exemption or adopting the PBR methods. This article discusses the benefits and challenges of the options available to small insurers under VM-20 as well as best practices that have been found along the way.

Description: Regression to the mean is a phenomenon that arises when comparing sequential data points. It states that when an initial observation is extreme or an outlier, future observations will be closer to the average. Health care actuaries need to understand and be able to mitigate the effects of regression to the mean to avoid misapplying predictive models or misstating measurements of historical effects.

Description: Feature article discussing image recognition and how it may affect actuaries in the future.

Description: Actuaries can be well suited to provide consulting to both DB and DC plans. We focus on DC design and the important nondiscrimination test requirements that need to be at the core of a plan design project. Plan design for DC plans seems easy, but should not be looked at any less seriously than DB plan design. The key steps are the same as DB plan design. We review key concepts that plan design actuaries want to know.

Description: In this article, we introduce a novel machine learning-based model that analyzes and predicts policyholder behaviors at the individual policy level. Policyholder embedding representations are learned using a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) that takes into account the sequence of historical transactions associated with a policy. Additionally, a Neural Network with a multi-head architecture is trained to predict the policyholder's next action based on the policyholder embedding and other policy attributes. The resulting model offers several advantages over traditional experience studies and assumption-setting methods, including the ability to set policy-level assumptions that improve reserve accuracy, predict multiple behaviors simultaneously while capturing the interrelationships between them, and generate policyholder embedding representations that are useful for segmentation.

Description: With coinsurance of an existing block of long-duration insurance contracts, there may be existing reinsurance that remains in force. The new coinsurance is typically net of such “inuring reinsurance.” In this article, we look at approaches that the new reinsurer might apply to account for the effects of inuring reinsurance.

Description: An article presenting updated results as of 12/2021 by using analgorithm that formed part of a paper presented at the AFIR-ERMColloquium which took place in Panama, in 2017. This article starts by proving that the conditions that have to be met in order for the formula to apply that were present in 12/2015 still hold.

Description: This article discusses key considerations and differences in measurement requirements between IFRS 17 and LDTI, leveraging a term insurance example to illustrate potential impacts on liabilities and, ultimately, earnings emergence.

Description: The growing global recognition of the importance of climate-related risks (transition and physical) has triggered a significant demand for research on the interface between climate and actuarial sciences, for example on the impact of risks from climate change on insurance markets and their operations. Furthermore, the systemic nature of climate-related risks underpins actuaries’ need to engage and work with diverse groups of stakeholders, including clients, communities, governments, regulators, boards, and investors. Contributions are invited for a special issue of the Annals of Actuarial Science featuring research on the topic ‘Managing Climate-Related Risks’. This special issue aims to capture leading interdisciplinary thinking, with clear relevance to actuarial problems in pensions and insurance.

Description: This paper uses the ideal quasi-natural experiment of government-subsidized agricultural insurance program phased out in different regions of China since 2007 to study the effects and transmission mechanisms of the program on alleviating regional poverty using a multi-period Difference-in-Differences (DID) approach. Specifically, this paper identifies the causal effects on the incidence, depth and intensity of poverty among rural residents. The research has important policy implications. First, this paper uses the program as a case to provide a research paradigm to estimate effects of implementing policy instruments that combine markets and government mandates. Second, as common prosperity is now a government imperative, the research also provides insights into ways insurance can be used to hedge income risks, alleviate poverty and help achieve more equitable distribution. The paper has been published on WeChat account of Chinese Association of Actuaries on February 9, 2022. The full version has been published in CSSCI journal Insurance Research, issue 11, 2021.