Description: The Society of Actuaries’ Committee on Finance Research and Investment Section are pleased to make available a research report explores gross domestic product (GDP) as a metric of economic growth.

Description: This report presents research into recent population mortality experience compiled by the Retirement Plans Experience Committee of the Society of Actuaries Research Institute as it pertains to development of mortality improvement assumptions for measuring obligations of retirement programs in the United States.

Description: On March 22, 2022, the Wall Street Journal hosted its annual Health Forum, a virtual all-day event which included several sessions. This session was attended by experts across the healthcare space and attendees included many from the healthcare technology companies. This report summarizes the event.

Description: The SOA Research Institute conducted an online survey of 1,000 U.S. respondents who are actively saving for both their retirement and a family member’s or friend’s college education. The results offer a better understanding of the challenges families face. Read the report for detailed findings or peruse the infographic for an overview.

Description: This newsletter provides a regulation outlook for the use of AI/ML in insurance industry, interpretations of regulatory expectations and what insurers should consider when managing risks associated with the development, implementation and use of AI/ML models/tools.

Description: This article gives you a different way to think about economics from a system science perspective and introduces concepts such as complexity, emergence, and interdependence. The concepts allow better conformity to the behavior of the markets and policyholder behavior.

Description: To address non-parallel movement in the interest rates the concept of key-rate duration was introduced in mid-'80s by Tom Ho. I will define certain key rate metrics, their variation used in the industry, how to calculate them, and an existing industry issue with how they are used. Additionally, I propose a novel technique to calculate key rates to mitigate the problem faced in the industry

Description: Our previous article, “Introduction of Cashflow Matching Strategic Asset Allocation (SAA) Framework,” introduced the concept and included a real-world case study that developed a liability-driven investment strategy for a single line of business (LOB) for a life insurer. This article expands the framework and the case study from a single LOB to simultaneously optimize asset allocation across multiple LOBs. It discusses how this multi-line SAA framework can enable an insurance company to efficiently tag its asset holdings to each LOB, identify opportunities in the public and private asset markets to enhance risk-adjusted returns, and develop a deeper understanding of the trade-off between the degree of cashflow matching and risk-adjusted returns across LOBs.

Description: How adopting a risk champion model can help insurance companies, create a clear distinction between the first line and the second line of defense and ensure proactivity in identifying and addressing risk

Description: The Federal funds rate increased by 4.25% in 2022 with further increases in 2023, which have already resulted in a liquidity crisis for a few banks. As the rapid increase of the interest rates pushed the new money rates above the yields of many life insurers’ investment portfolios, insurance companies are facing a dilemma between compressed margins from peer pressure and the concern with liquidity shortfalls and realized capital losses should mass surrenders happen. This paper discussed main emerging risks under rising interest rate environment, and several ways to mitigate these risks.