Description: This whitepaper authored byWalter Zultowski, PhD looks further into how companies might use the result of the Phase 1 study to develop marketing approaches for the identified sub segments.

Description: The SOA’s research objective is to provide guidance to state exchange officials and administrators, federal officials and administrators, and actuaries assisting states and health plans. The goal of the project is to estimate the morbidity and/or cost for newly insured individuals in the individual market (and to some degree, the small group exchange) relative to the morbidity and/or cost for the current commercially insured population. This analysis will primarily focus on the individual, non-group market. In order to plan for the impact that these currently uninsured individuals will have on the health insurance markets, it will be important to understand their costs relative to the costs for people already enrolled, for whom many health insurers have experience and data.

Description: This study examines reductions in retirement benefits from the decline in defined benefit plans and increases in defined contribution plans during the past 20 years and what effect this has on workforce management. In particular how this change is affecting older workers’ decisions to retire and what effect this could have on companies. An underlying assumption implicit in evaluating the benefit of retirement of older workers is that productivity declines in old age while pay does not, leading to a pay productivity gap that could have an adverse effect on the employer from delayed retirement. The validity of this assumption was also examined.

Description: The Society of Actuaries’ Pension Section Research Committee commissioned this study to help actuaries develop forward thinking long-term estimates of future equity risk premiums. Equity risk premium is the amount by which the total return of a stock market index, such as the S&P 500, exceeds that of government bonds. Equity risk premiums, calculated from historical data, have been used to project long term values of equity portfolios in retirement plans. The validity of using historical data to project future equity returns will be examined along with other forward looking methods.

Description: This is an Excel workbook that contains detailed reviews of the literature that was searched in the course of a study that explored pre-retirement influences on attitudes and decisions regarding retirement. The research study, conducted by Linda Smith Brothers, reviewed sixty papers written since 1990, and summarized their important points under several categories. The workbook contains a description of the specific categories covered and how they are addressed by each of the sixty papers that were reviewed.

Description: This report highlights the findings of the 2009 survey and focuses on issues in the survey specifically as they relate to economic and financial issues.

Description: This is a transcript of a roundtable discussion moderated by Anna Rappaport. The purpose of the roundtable is to discuss a model of personal investing known as the Life–Cycle Model of Investing and Saving. This model is concerned with how individuals can find ways to smooth their consumption so that they have a roughly similar standard of living across different periods of time. This roundtable discussion was the catalyst for the article, 'Perspectives on Retirement Planning and Consumption' written by Steven S. Siegel for the October/November 2007 Actuary magazine.

Description: This research report sponsored by the SOA's Marketing and Distribution Section gives valuable insights from leaders in the middle income life insurance market.

Description: The Society of Actuaries and two of its special interest sections, the Pension Section and the Health Section, set about creating a pension plan turnover table for use by actuaries to assist in calculating benefit costs for pension and retiree medical plans. This is the final report about that project.

Description: Specific formatting guidelines for SOA research reports produced after May, 2008.