Description: This is the inventory part of the report from the research project that reviewed and inventoried the range of quality and efficiency measures currently available for healthcare. The goal was to outline key areas of quality and efficiency measurement and identify future opportunities for actuaries. The inventory lists the resources and provides brief descriptions of their services with links.

Description: Study of the impact of IRS proposed mortality tables on private sector pension plan costs, including liabilities, contributions and PBGC premiums.

Description: This is the version of the SOA’s research report that appeared in the July 2008 issue of the Actuarial Practice Forum. This report presents modeling results of the possible impact of the IASB’s preliminary views of accounting for insurance contract liabilities on certain U.S. Life, health and annuity insurance products. This report presents comparisons of selected U.S. GAAP values to corresponding values of the proposed International Financial Reporting Standard IFRS results.

Description: This article discusses capital market cycles, specifically considering whether or not 2008 was a good time to buy. It concludes that “stocks have likely only recently entered the buying opportunity range on an aggregate basis. However, from a psychological and risk management perspective, we should strongly consider that stock prices will revert beyond the mean for many years, perhaps even decades, before they get better.”

Description: In this Chairman’s corner column, Tom Anichini suggests several sources for finding investment related continuing education content. In addition to archived SOA presentations and recordings, other potential sources include pertinent academic and practitioner periodicals, blogs, podcasts, conference and seminar websites, and networks of academic publications and working papers.

Description: Describes outlook for inflation, generally higher in the US and lower in Japan/Europe. Enumerates macroeconomic drivers of inflation, and comments on the pace of inflation-linked debt issuance globally.

Description: Discussion of the implications for US Insurers of the vote for Britain to exit the European Union (Brexit).

Description: The International Accounting Standards Board issued a Discussion Paper, Preliminary Views on Insurance Contracts, discussing the many issues surrounding accounting for insurance contracts and presenting current views in a number of areas. The SOA published a research report on the impact of these Preliminary Views - which is summarized chapter-by-chapter in this article.

Description: This month’s global emerging risk, is the impact of inflation in China. The SOA’s 2010 Emerging Risks Survey found that 73 percent of respondents believe an emerging economic risk in China, including oil price shock, fall in the US dollar and Chinese recovery from the financial crisis would be most likely to lead to major changes in China’s financial relationship with the rest of the world. From the Bubble Risk Bulletin, February 2011.