Description: Discusses earlier IRS rulings on Contingent Deferred Annuities and the latest ones, PLRs 201117012 and 201117013. Highlights two important additional issues covered in latest rulings.

Description: This article examines how the choice of the rebalancing frequency in a variable annuity hedging program impacts hedging.

Description: This article discusses how small companies, by staying simple and focused and not taking immeasurably disastrous risks, bring sanity to an insane world.

Description: This article discusses the problems created by the options in unit-linked annuities in the UK, variable annuities in the US and segregated fund contracts in Canada. Methodology for valuing the guaranteed annuity option is presented.

Description: The proposed regulations define a class of products known as “qualifying longevity annuity contracts” (QLACs), which are excluded from the account balance used to determine required minimum distributions. By exempting longevity annuities (up to a specified limit) from the RMD rules, it is hoped that it will provide individuals under defined-contribution plans the option to use an “affordable” portion of their account balance to purchase a longevity annuity. The proposed regulations apply to tax-qualified defined-contribution plans under section 401(a), section 403(b), individual retirement annuities and accounts (IRAs) under section 408, and eligible governmental section 457 plans.

Description: This article examines the changes in U.S. regulatory reserve and risk-based capital requirements that will significantly impact the insurance industry and practicing actuaries. It summarizes activity related to principles-based reserves and risk-based capital initiatives during 2005.

Description: In the past decade, U.S. life and annuity insurance companies’ utilization of asset-intensive reinsurance internal reinsurance has grown significantly. Many reinsurers and insurers have set up entities or affiliates in Cayman, with many more in the pipeline. Here we will discuss Cayman’s reinsurance market growth momentum, and the main benefits that Cayman offers.

Description: In this article, we collected data from the companies’ roll-forward disclosures related to calendar years 2021 and 2022 on Market Risk Benefit and shared a high-level summary of the Market Risk Benefit volatility that a focus group of companies incurred and summarized the most common ways to mitigate volatility.

Description: Life reinsurance activity in Bermuda has experienced rapid growth in recent years. This article explores the key drivers of this growth.

Description: This article provides a short history of the correction procedures previously developed to address compliance failures and the shortcomings of those procedures under sections 101f and 7702, laying the foundation for a sea change in the correction process.