Description: These products effectively provide policyholders access to an equity index with an option pass-through. This new direction blurs the line between more traditional variable annuity and fixed indexed annuity products. This session will discuss these and other similar product innovations, including some interesting regulatory, accounting, and risk management considerations.

Description: The presenter will share his opinion on the major and minor cycle of the global and China economy. He believes that the recovery of the major cycle depends on the resonance of politics between China and the United States, as well as reform. As the minor cycle is V-type, the weak recovery depends on policy and price increase. The liquidity regulation and the growth advance together. The economic cycle is stabilizing, monetary policy is tightening the margin and the importance of the regulation is increasing. But the increase of the economy is critical to risk controlling.

Description: General Introduction of Block Chain•This session will introduce the definition, history and current status of block chain, as well as the necessities of its development.Incorporating Block Chain into the Insurance Industry•Presenters will illustrate the significant roles, unique features and future prospects of block chain’s application in an insurance company’s operation.Actuarial Application in Block Chain Development•Experts will demonstrate what roles actuaries play and how actuarial techniques can be optimized in block chain development.The Achievements of Block Chain’s Application in Sunshine Insurance Group•This session will discuss the implementation process, as well as the remarkable achievements of block chain’s application in Sunshine Insurance Group.

Description: Companies can implement VM-20 as early as 2017. While there have been research and educational materials produced to help actuaries and others better understand the implications and implementation of the new requirements from a financial reporting perspective, little has been developed emphasizing the product development actuary perspective. This SOA research project examines the impact of VM-20 from a product development actuarial perspective. The research will help actuaries and others enhance current practices to optimize pricing and product development activities within a VM-20 framework as well as enhance intracompany communication and efficiencies related to VM-20. This session is a follow-up to the session at last year’s symposium and will focus on Phase 2 of the research project.

Description: The session will talk about Management expectation and key development areas of Big Data, overview of big data application in the life insurance industry.

Description: Advice and lessons learned from two industry leaders on how to account for organizational culture and strategy, InsurTech, and customers in order to build a winning environment for innovation and execution.

Description: A pension plan uses Actuarial Equivalence to determine a 'fair' adjustment to pension benefits for form and timing of payment. The definition of Actuarial Equivalence is set in the Plan Document which may not have been reviewed for decades. With a wave of recent pension litigation in the U.S., plan sponsors, attorneys and actuaries now pay more attention to how pension plans define Actuarial Equivalence. How does a change in mortality table or interest rate affect the ultimate benefit? What are the requirements under ERISA and pertinent regulations? Are there court cases that have examined this question before? What are the issues behind the recent lawsuits and what can a plan sponsor do now to reduce their legal exposure? What alternative strategies are available for changing or not changing the definition in the plan document?

Description: The life market has seen many challenges recently and has evolved to meet them. More exciting developments are expected to continue in the future. The presenters will cover current life industry trends, including principles-based reserves product trends, indexed UL product and illustrations updates, and accelerated underwriting and the NY DFS circular lette

Description: The importance of financial wellness has been increasingly recognized in the last few years. More organizations are sponsoring programs to assist people in different stages of their life

Description: Many SOA members are familiar with the Actuaries' Climate Index, the result of an early and critical effort by North American actuarial organizations to grapple with the impact of climate change on our constituents. But did you know that the SOA continues to produce research on the nexus of environmental issues and the actuarial profession? And did you know that under its Strategic Research Program Initiative, the SOA has elevated its commitment to research through the development of a Climate and Catastrophe research program?