Description: The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) project for the transition to a new real-world economic scenario generator (ESG) prescribed for principle-based reserve and capital calculations selected a vendor in the fall of 2020. The American Academy of Actuaries and other interested parties have been assisting the NAIC in this transition. Over the past four years, extensive analysis, model validation, and comparison work has been done. There have been many updates on the project but few opportunities to obtain an in-depth understanding of the new features of the new ESG and its impact on reserves and capital. Practitioners are very interested in the questions: - How different are the scenarios from the Academy/Society of Actuaries ESG and the new NAIC ESG? - How different are the models and techniques used to create the scenarios in both generators? - Is there a significant difference in capital and reserve requirements for model office tests between the two ESGs? - Are there concerns with the new NAIC ESG? The session addresses each of these questions in detail. At the conclusion of the session attendees will appreciate the key differences between the model structure and scenario performance of the two ESGs and will understand the differences in capital and reserve requirements for model office tests across the two ESGs. Attendees will also learn how the initial yield curve fitting differs between the models, about fund mapping considerations, and the interpretability of parameters in the new NAIC model.

Description: This session will provide insights into current industry allocations to asset classes with a focus on emerging and growing allocations to complex assets. Additionally, participants will gain an understanding of the risks associated with complex assets and the associated regulatory discussions.

Description: This session will provide an analysis of the latest activities and trends in asset-intensive reinsurance (AIR), including life, annuity, long-term care (LTC), and pension risk transfer (PRT) transactions, and their anticipated impact on the industry in the coming years. Speakers will delve into the strategic considerations of reinsurers, the concerns and preferences of insurers, and the perspectives of rating agencies. Through a case study, the session will demonstrate how asset-intensive reinsurance can serve as a capital lever and profitability enhancer within the evolving regulatory landscape. The discussion will highlight how these strategies support insurers' strategic initiatives, enhance internal rates of return (IRR) and other key performance indicators (KPI), facilitate sales growth and product launches, and improve the financial strength of the company. Additionally, as many of these transactions utilize alternative asset classes to enhance yields, the speakers will examine the differences among these asset classes and the key considerations when incorporating or modeling them in actuarial work.

Description: S&P Global published a revised insurance capital model in November 2023. The revisions add considerable complexity to their insurance capital model and rely more on companies to fill out the detailed model inputs. In return, the new model allows for better risk differentiation and an overall better assessment of insurance company risk-adjusted capitalization. In this session we will review the new capital model in-depth, considering its implications for capital management and product development. By the end of the session, attendees should have a deeper understanding of the revised criteria of the S&P insurance capital model, including its most important risk drivers and how it relates to the AM Best 'BCAR' and the NAIC RBC capital models.

Description: Deciding where to spend that next dollar of capital is at the heart of financial management. Executive teams regularly grapple with decisions on whether to purchase a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, invest in growing a distribution channel, expand into a new geographic area, or develop a new product, among many. The great news is there is no shortage of sound financial theory and logical rationale for making these transformational decisions. Yet business literature is filled with examples of decisions that did not meet expectations, sometimes materially missing the mark when comparing experience to assumptions. This is particularly the case with mergers and acquisitions, where multiple studies have shown that a sizable majority of such transactions do not achieve their intended outcomes. While some of the disappointing returns are attributable to random chance and unfortunate circumstances, a material number of them can be traced back to cognitive issues that arose during the decision-making process. Mental shortcuts or heuristics taken by individual decision-makers in evaluating information, as well as organizational dynamics such as groupthink both contribute to sub-optimal choices involving significant outlays of money. Being aware of these and having established protocols to mitigate against them can substantially improve decision-making around capital allocation and reduce misallocation of funds. In this session, the panelists discuss several common cognitive biases that can adversely impact the capital allocation decision process, introducing the notions of time, accounting convention, positivity, hierarchy, and social proof in describing them. Historical case examples of sub-optimal capital allocation are then explored, identifying the contributing behavioral factors including the simultaneous confluence of multiple factors. The panelists will close the session with several suggestions for attendees to consider for incorporation into their decision-making processes. At the conclusion of the session, attendees will be able to: - Learn common cognitive biases that impact capital allocation decisions - Differentiate which biases impact different aspects of the capital allocation process - Build awareness of biases affecting capital allocation decision models - Mitigate cognitive biases present in decision making processes

Description: This session will focus on what is new and coming at the Appointed Actuary (e.g., Actuarial Guideline ((AG)) 53, equity testing, etc.). We will provide highlights from the updated AAT Practice Note. A particular focus will be paid to asset classes that have received regulatory attention recently ((e.g., commercial mortgage loans, collatoralized loan oblications (CLOs), etc.)).

Description: Insurers have long relied on scenario analysis to understand the long-term impacts of potential business decisions, but the advent of rapidly changing market environments and a growing desire to optimize capital has spurred business leaders to leverage new tools in order to explore potential options.

Description: This is a session for liability side actuaries that want a summary of asset valuation principlesTopics to be discussed: why it's important in today's world to know both sides of the balance sheet.Discussion of yield curves including spot rates, forward rates, coupon rates and bootstrappingDiscussion of duration calculations including explanation of modified duration for contracts with embedded options, key rate durations.Summarize today's regulatory environment in the context of embedded options including MRB, VM21, and VM22Next, we will dive into duration profiles of different asset classes including, CLOs - floating rate, RMBS (negative convexity), traditional bonds, and swaps.Lastly, we will discuss risk neutral scenarios, martingale tests, and applications in hedging MRBs.

Description: Virtual - Session 5A: Leveraging Gamification and Personalized Wellness to Grow the Business

Description: In this presentation, we will explore the latest investment trends shaping the life insurance industry today. We will start with an overview of the various types of assets and strategic asset allocations that are prevalent within the industry. Moving beyond the basics, we will delve into an advanced asset optimization tool that is revolutionizing how asset portfolios are constructed. This tool considers factors such as asset liability cash flow matching, target yields, durations, Risk-Based Capital (RBC) requirements, and asset type restrictions. As the life insurance sector places greater emphasis on sophisticated asset management and navigates increasingly complex portfolios, understanding and leveraging this optimization tool has become crucial. Join us to gain valuable insights into optimizing asset portfolios to meet the evolving demands of the life insurance industry.