Description: Actuaries are accustomed to considering how much conservatism is appropriate in their estimates, whether made for pricing or for mea- surement of liabilities. In the proposals for a new standard on accounting for insurance contracts, this conservatism is referred to by the International Accounting Standards Board IASB and the Financial Accounting Standard Board FASB of the United States as the risk adjustment.

Description: FASB decisions made regarding potential changes to US GAAP accounting that differ from corresponding IASB decisions, causing the potential accounting changes.

Description: Discussion of recent FASB tentative decisions on disclosure and transition for their long-duration insurance contracts accounting project.

Description: An Actuarial Analysis of FAS 133 Part 1 by Anson J. Glacy, Jr. from The Financial Reporter, February 2000, Issue No. 41.

Description: Discusses a joint project between the FASB and IASB to update the accounting standards for financial instruments.

Description: Discusses the content of the Statement of Financial Accounting Standards 157, Fair Value Measurements and implementation challenges.

Description: Feature article asking seven questions raised by the IASB’s and FASB’s recent changes to the insurance contracts accounting standard.

Description: This 2004 article discusses current issues and developments relating to the valuation of and accounting for employee stock options.

Description: After a summary of FASB decisions in their GAAP Targeted Improvements project, this article describes several issues that will need to be resolved either by the board or in actuarial practice and argues for seeking solutions that provide meaningful results without overly complicating valuation processes.

Description: Healthcare costs have been rising faster than general inflation for many years. Early models that predicted this past pattern projected healthcare expenditure growth that continued to outpace total expenditure growth leading to the fallacious position that the whole of the US economy would ultimately be consumed by healthcare. The Society of Actuaries' Pension Section and Health Section Research teams commissioned Professor Thomas E. Getzen of Temple University to construct a resource model for the projection of long term healthcare cost trends that includes capacity constraints to ensure the long-term projection is rational. The motivation for creation of the model was driven by its potential usage as a resource for the estimation of reportable liabilities for retiree healthcare benefits as specified under FAS 106 and GASB 45 accounting statements. This is a zip file containing the following: 1. A background paper on the creation of the health trend model, 2. The model, programmed in Microsoft Excel [xls format], that projects per-person expenditures and growth rates through 2099 using baseline assumptions, but also permits the flexibility for user–inputted alternative assumptions, and 3. Technical documentation providing transparency and support for the ultimate results.