Description: Inflation can impact retirement and retirees in a variety of ways. With inflation as a reality in the current economic environment, the Society of Actuaries Research Institute's Aging and Retirement Strategic Research Program has explored this issue in recently published research and essays. This webcast will present results of that work, sharing different aspects of inflation's impact on retirement including savings, investment choices and the impact on retirees themselves.

Description: Our panelists will explore fixed income topics from an actuarial perspective. We'll start with the basics of bonds, including sensitivity measures like duration and higher moments. Then, we'll discuss bond ALM characteristics, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of incorporating various bonds into a portfolio. Finally, we'll cover actuarial modeling considerations, such as reinvestments, defaults, expenses, and other assumptions. We encourage the audience to ask questions throughout the presentation and we hope you can join us for an engaging discussion!

Description: Discover investing trends across the life and health industry as insurers seek to navigate rapidly changing rate and market environments. BlackRock will present results from its Peer Risk Study, which models industry holdings based on statutory filings at the CUSIP level. Through the Aladdin risk modeling software, expect a production of deep insights into insurer portfolio risk and return characteristics, as well as exploring how they have evolved. Keep an eye out for a partner to present on the evolution from their perspective. Start learning about what is happening on the asset side of the balance sheet across the industry.

Description: The Special Financial Assistance (SFA) program included in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) will provide grants to some of the more troubled multiemployer plans. While this is a welcomed relief for many multiemployer plans facing insolvency, plenty of challenges remain in the implementation of the funds and ability to maintain solvency after the SFA funds are fully utilized. Explore the challenges and opportunities from the pension relief provisions.

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 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: 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 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: Come discuss modeling costs and its governance, as well as introduce some platforms for more granular asset modeling.

Description: In honor of Bob Barker's 100th birthday (December 12, 2023), we will examine the emerging development in the opaque world of health care prices. 'Referenced Based Pricing' has been a cost-cutting strategy applied by some self-insured employers, but administration, employee dissatisfaction with balance billing, and litigation have been barriers to growth. The new transparency data has yielded research indicating that 'cash prices' are lower than commercially negotiated rates in some areas. Dive in with industry experts as they discuss emerging trends of how consumers, employers, and health insurers will pay for health care services.