Description: Read the October 2020 issue of Health Watch published by the Health Section. Newsletters provided practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.

Description: In this article, the author discusses the insurance market in Switzerland.

Description: This article describes the increasing problems in the product filing and forms approval process under state regulation. It also describes the conclusions and product filing uniformity vision that includes the formation of CARFRA which stands for Coordinated Advertising, Rate and Form Review Authority.

Description: Small companies face numerous challenges and opportunities when developing supplemental health insurance products. This is particularly true because of the competitive nature of these products and the innovations happening in the supplemental health market. This article explores the challenges regarding rating, the volatile regulatory environment, product flexibility, and distribution. In addition, the article identifies competitive advantages that small companies may have in the supplemental health market.

Description: Development of annuities markets is a critical element of any private system. In Mexico, when the new pension regimen came into existence in 1997, the Mexican Institute of Social Security [IMSS] was supposed to buy a single premium annuity for all the people who become eligible under the new regime. Disability pensions represent 37% of total pensions sold up to date. Mortality of disables show substantial differences against the mortality table use to compute the annuity. Most of the differences can be explained by looking at the disability causes. Using information for social security for 2001 and 2002, regarding mortality and disability, this is the abstract of a paper that presents the main causes of disability among disables and the main causes of mortality of those disables who died in their first and second year of disability. The analysis of those cases apart from explaining the important differences between the expected mortality and the observed mortality during the first two years of disability, also explains some of the latter changes in the operational rules of IMSS.

Description: This is a table from an article in The Actuary Magazine entitled A Strategic Analysis of the U.S. Life Insurance Industry Part II: Products.

Description: Insurance commissioners and deputy insurance commissioners will discuss current topics including health care reform, life insurance issues, risks in the major medical markets, voluntary products and other topics.

Description: The presenters will explore the roles of mental health and social determinants of health in the management of a population's total health. We will explore how emerging sources of data and information have led to a renewed focus on managing mental health conditions and social determinants of health. Speakers will address current health care programs that utilize this data and information to manage the total care for populations using predictive models to improve the deployment of resources and initiatives to improve the cost of care and health of populations. The presenters will also look at how providers of care are approaching mental health co-morbidities to manage physical health and social determinants of health in the management of patients.

Description: One of the Health Section's key focuses in 2019 is Initiative 18/11. Last year the SOA joined forces with the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) to answer the nagging question: “What can we do about the cost of healthcare?” A steering group has been formed to lead a research project as to what managed care companies can do to reduce costs without sacrificing quality. The project [called Managed Care 3.0 in the 18/11 paper] will examine historical models that have worked as well as investigate the impact that new technologies and care models may have on cost and quality, with the goal of better understanding the current environment and identify­ing potential risks and opportunities.

Description: This is the second half of a two-part session regarding FASB Targeted Improvement (LDTI) to U.S. GAAP for long durational insurance contracts. Presenters of the session will discuss operational (e.g., data, systems, models and process, etc.) and financial issues concerning the implementation of the accounting changes. We will also discuss interpretation of the new standards specific to accident and health insurance. Throughout the session, we would like to encourage the audience to share their experiences.