Description: The SOA Reinsurance Research Section is seeking proposals on Mortality Improvement Independ – Independent Analysis. Mortality improvement is an important assumption for projecting future liability cashflows and has a material financial impact on a company. Mortality improvement is a hot topic in the industry and companies show significant interest in understanding the key factors that differentiate mortality improvement. The focus of this research is to gain a better understanding of the main drivers of mortality improvement:

Description: This session will delve into the results of a recent industry study exploring dynamic lapse behavior over the past five years in U.S. insurance products with general account credited rate-type features.

Description: "The Individual Life Experience Committee continues to unlock valuable insights from the VM51 data as the NAIC releases it. In this session, attendees will get a preview of individual life mortality patterns during COVID-19 for more than 100 companies in the NAIC data for the years 2020 to 2021, the first years of the pandemic. The session will also share early findings from the committee's latest initiatives, including the integration of predictive analytics into reporting products, assessment of simplified and accelerated underwriting, exploration of joint life mortality, evaluation of company-level differences, and continued research into old-age mortality patterns. Attendees will leave the session with enhanced knowledge for assessing best-estimate mortality for valuation purposes."

Description: This session will explore the uses of financial models at companies as well as the history of how we have arrived at the current day status of how models are used and viewed internally. Financial models can be very useful tools for many actuarial purposes - a key asset for many areas of a company including forecasting and understanding key shifts in business demographics. However, many modeling challenges have companies treating models as a liability and only using them for necessary processes. This session will explore why this is the case and explore opportunities to turn financial models into a key asset supporting key decisions.

Description: Every year an AI topic goes through a hype cycle. Since 2022 and now in 2023 we continue to hear more about the ChatGPT models and how an everyday person is able to interact with AI. As more startups and applications are riding the hype, what does it all mean for our industry? Is this just a buzz or real? This talk intends to cover at a high level what are large language models, what does it mean for audit or regulatory space, and what might be some pitfalls or tolerance of error when it comes to selecting a right application for such models in insurance use cases.

Description: How do you go about designing a new product? Behavioral Science is an often overlooked tool in enhancing product design and using a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) can give you insights to customer preferences and their willingness to pay for features. The result of this work is a product explicitly designed with your customers and market in mind.

Description: This session will showcase how from an actuarial perspective IFRS17 has its roots in market consistent valuations. It will also show how International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 17 is rooted in probability-weighted stochastic scenarios-same as fair valuation, and how initial recognition sets the stage, as in the pricing basis and report, for actual experience to emerge as in the subsequent recognition. A detailed model will be given for a simple annual premium non-par endowment and actual numbers given and explained. The stochastic model will explain in detail the key reserve items in IFRS 17 including: - Liability for remaining coverage (LRC) - Risk Adjustment (RA) - Contractual Service Margin (CSM) And it will explain their interactions with one another. A discussion will be held regarding universal life policies with simple interest guarantees. And how these guarantees merit a valuation similar to Lookback options because of their path-dependent nature.

Description: Recently, life insurers have seen a lot of change in their business model. Whether it be new accounting rules (e.g., long-duration targeted improvements [LDTI]) or new capital charges (e.g., structured equity tranche), companies are being forced to reconsider how they invest their assets. Today's session will help attendees understand how companies are using modelling software to help understand the impact of these changes on both their existing portfolio and potential changes that these new regulations may lead to. By attending, attendees will get a better understanding of: - How life insurers' asset allocation decisions are different than other financial companies (e.g., banks, pension funds, P&C companies) - How these changes may impact the risk vs. reward tradeoffs that life insurers' face - How these companies can use modelling software to help evaluate these potential impacts

Description: Assumptions have been a critical component of actuarial work since the rise of the profession hundreds of years ago. Without well-developed, credible assumptions, reliable financial projections are an impossibility. Yet in 2023, there is still a wide range of assumption processes and governance practices in place throughout the life industry. Follow assumption and governance experts from Oliver Wyman to dig deep into results from our 2023 assumption process and governance survey. Examine what we're seeing currently practiced throughout the industry and offer insights into what we're doing well, as well as where we have opportunities to improve. Explore topics, such as assumption governance frameworks, governance costs, development and review, approval processes, implementation and usage, monitoring, and challenges.Gain a better understanding of how your own assumption processes compare against others in the industry, and learn best practices that can be implemented to improve assumption processes.

Description: At the end of December 2020, Congress enacted the Consolidated Appropriates Act, 2021, which included revisions to Section 7702. Effective for policies issued after December 31, 2020, the fixed 4% and 6% minimum annual effective rates under these tests were changed to refer to a market-based rate called the “insurance interest rate”. For contracts issued in 2021, the insurance rate was set to 2% - defined as the lower of the Section 7702 applicable federal interest rate based on the 60-month period ending December 2019 (2%) and the Section 7702 valuation interest rate in effect for 2020 (3.5%). This reduction in the rates used for compliance testing required significant product, operational, and technology changes for companies to reach product compliance. After 2021, the insurance interest rate is redetermined annually with a minimum change floor.