Description: The Pension Section is pleased to make available Part I of a two-part research paper exploring embedded options in pension plans. Part I includes a catalogue of embedded options in pension plans and the results of a related survey of pension practitioners. The paper was written by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC.

Description: Authored by a MIB Solutions team of Tom Rhodes, Stuart Klugman, Marianne Purushotham and Stacy Gill, the report summarizes the results of a study on the application and adoption of credibility theory within the life insurance and annuity industry. In addition to the report, numerical examples related to the application of credibility to company mortality and lapse data are provided in the four Excel files. This excel spreadsheet is a numerical example relating to the application of Credibility for lapses by policy for limited fluctuation. Please see the SOA website research section for the full report on Credibility Theory Practices.

Description: This paper is a literature review of available papers, publications, articles, and presentations on the topic of longevity risk.

Description: Appendix 2 from the research report entitled 'Exploration of Reputational Risk from the Perspective of a Variety of Stakeholders.'

Description: Research report describing an analysis of experience transition rates between Long Term Care insurance claim settings over the course of a claim. Examples of such transitions are from an assisted care facility to home health care or from home health care to a nursing home.

Description: This report describes a simple way to construct a bivariate copula with specified marginals and partially specified dependence. For example, the method allows one to model tail behavior scenarios while holding the core of the joint distribution fixed. An Excel workbook named CopulaExample.xls is provided to illustrate the method, including its use in Monte Carlo simulation.

Description: This report summarizes the results of a mortality and pricing survey. It indicates significant differences between the mortality assumptions for different product lines and even between different companies within a single product line. Widespread differences in mortality expectations between products may give individuals an advantage by acting on inefficiencies in the financial services market.

Description: A primer on extreme event modeling and mitigation for practitioners, it covers the complete cycle of extreme event risk management, from identifying experience data sources, to extreme event detection, to modeling and dependence analysis, and finally to monitoring and mitigation.

Description: This research report is a summary of an online survey and follow-up discussions with survey respondents on the current state of actuarial modeling controls within U. S. and Canadian life insurance and annuity companies. The current state was then compared to the results from the 2012 survey on this topic to examine the evolution in actuarial model controls and governance. The report also provides an industry assessment and proposes considerations for enhancing the current state towards a well-controlled governance framework.

Description: Chapter 6 of the Models for Retirement Policy Analysis. This chapter describes DYNACAN, a dynamic microsimulation model developed and maintained in the Office of the Chief Actuary OCA of the Canada Pension Plan. It simulates the basic demographic and economic events relevant for calculation of CPP contributions and benefits. The strengths and limitations of the approach are addressed as well as accessibility and ease of use.