Description: Chairperson’s column discussing the history and future of The Financial Reporting Section of the Society of Actuaries.

Description: The December 2013 issue of the Financial Reporting Section’s newsletter, The Financial Reporter.

Description: A summary of the background, features, and potential pitfalls of the new LTC Experience Reporting Forms, which will soon be required. The new forms are designed to better inform investors, competitors, and regulators about financial performance, reserve adequacy, and relationship between assumptions and experience. Companies are advised to start preparing for the change to the new forms.

Description: An overview of the NAIC Variable Annuity Reforms, including a discussion of perceived positives and challenges associated with the reforms.

Description: The SOA textbook related to US GAAP for insurers has been updated. It incorporates the recent GAAP changes, including Long Duration Targeted Improvements, and now covers both life and non-life insurers. This is an essential updated for anyone working with US GAAP financial statements, whether you are an actuary or other finance professional.

Description: Discusses five subjects, including proposed IASB discussion paper, split-dollar life insurance, penalties for paid tax preparers, statutory reserves for insurers, and NAIC securitization initiatives.

Description: This article analyzes two common interpretations of SOP 03-1 in determining the guaranteed minimum death benefit GMDB liability in a variable annuity contract, and it analyzes the resulting impact on the initial GMDB reserve and on the volatility of GAAP earnings as actual experience emerges. This analysis could be applied to the guaranteed minimum income benefit GMIB, guaranteed minimum accumulation benefit GMAB, guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit GMWB and other guaranteed benefits in a variable annuity contract that are subject to SOP 03-1, and the conclusions would be similar.

Description: A discussion of alternative meanings to “Best” in best estimate. When one is trying to estimate a result that is normally distributed, the mean, median and mode will all equal one another. However if the results are not normally distributed, different variance metrics will result in different “best” estimates. When different parts of a financial statement use different criteria for measuring best estimates and different processes for handling variances, the results can be volatile, unpredictable and perhaps unreasonable.

Description: A discussion of Actuarial Aspects of Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley

Description: Feature article discussing the latest decision by the FASB and IASB in their joint insurance contracts project.