Description: The Financial Reporting Section, Reinsurance Section and Committee on Life Insurance Research announce the release of a report that provides illustrative examples of how various accounting regimes apply to a range of insurance contracts. This research was performed by an Ernst & Young LLP team. The study investigates the differences that occur when measurement is made under different bases.

Description: The purpose of this research is to a) identify regulatory structures and influences in North America, b) provide examples that illustrate regulatory risk, and c) suggest mitigation ideas for both insurers and their regulators. The audiences for this paper are a) actuaries who must price policies, value policies, or manage capital, b) other insurance professionals who deal with operational risk, strategic risk, and capital planning, and c) regulators who protect the interests of policyholders and address the solvency of insurers.

Description: The objectives of this research project are to: • Provide a perspective on the definition of regulatory risk • Reveal current differences in regulatory risk concerns between the United States and Canada • Identify mitigation tactics that can be used to address regulatory risks • Identify the type and frequency of regulatory risk disclosures to stakeholders. The research had three parts: (1) identify key risks; (2) identify key risk scenarios and mitigation tactics; and (3) identify risk disclosure practices. The research was conducted via two sets of phone interviews with participating company representatives.

Description: This report studies the impact of unemployment and underemployment on insurance business. It introduces the concepts, theoretical background, and patterns of unemployment and underemployment. It also touches on economic policies that have been used to improve labor market conditions and maintain the market’s stability.

Description: This report summarizes the results of a company survey of select period mortality assumptions. This project was sponsored by the SOA’s Product Development Section and the Committee on Life Insurance Research.

Description: This paper discusses some key challenges of embedding guarantees in DC plans, including setting an appropriate guarantee level, designing effective cost funding and risk management strategies, and fair treatment of plan participants with different investment strategies.

Description: The Living to 100 monograph is composed of the papers, essays, panel discussions, teaching and keynote sessions presented at the symposium.

Description: This report is a summary based on current actuarial practices around the development and use of policyholder behavior assumptions including the use of dynamic modeling approaches. The research team surveyed and evaluated current practices in the industry; and highlighted current thinking on modeling human behaviors outside the life insurance industry. This project was sponsored by the SOA’s Financial Reporting Section and the Committee on Life Insurance Research.

Description: There have been many examples of interest rate swap deals which have not produced the desired results for the end-user, largely due to unanticipated interest rate movements. While the authors of this paper strongly believe that derivatives, such as IR swaps, are powerful tools, which when used properly can effectively transfer risk and enhance the efficiency of markets, they also believe it is critically important to analyze the potential exposure to interest-rate risk. In this article, they provide the necessary background to measure this potential exposure.

Description: As part of its work, the PBITT Working Group issued its seventh survey to gather the range of assumptions actuaries use in pricing, reserving, and risk management of minimum guarantees on Variable Annuity products, such as death benefits, income benefits, withdrawal benefits and maturity benefits.