Description: Letter from the Chair of the Product Development Council. Challenging times bring opportunities. Today's low interest environment is a rallying cry for our industry to transform our products and the way we do business

Description: The authors explore a new approach to the premium persistency assumption in universal life products.

Description: This actually is a copy of an appendix of a research paper sponsored by the SOA Committee on Finance Research. You can read the entire research paper: “Lapse Modeling for the Post-Level Period—a Practical Application of Predictive Modeling” at the SOA site https://www.soa.org/Research/Research-Projects/Finance-Investment/lapse-2015-modeling-post-level/#sthash.W9lERSls.dpbs, but you can read this valuable appendix copied here in this issue to see how to build a PM step-by-step using your data and the R programming language. We thank Richard Xu, Dihui Lai, Minyu Cao, Scott Rushing, and Tim Rozar for their excellent paper and the Society of Actuaries, for the permission to reprint this portion of the paper.

Description: This article explores the methods of determining the optimal timing for risk management projects.

Description: Hear from the editor’s on the August 2018 issue of Risk Management published by the JRMS.

Description: This article discusses the current state of the IAIS' initiative on their group Insurance Capital Standard.

Description: An abbreviated version of a larger chart produced by the International Actuarial Association.

Description: Read the March 2018 issue of Small Talk published by Smaller Insurance Company Section. Practical information on trends that impact sections and activities.

Description: Many risk management decisions involve the timing of implementing risk strategies. The cost of hedging, capital raising and securitization changes with the economic environment. The timing of de-risking and investment in new risk management functions affect the cost and benefit of these projects as well. Like investment timing, it is important to consider the timing in risk management decisions to maximize the gain of risk management projects. This paper discusses methods of determining the appropriate timing of implementing a risk management strategy or investing in risk management projects. It explains the human biases that may lead to inferior timing decisions. It also covers the costs and benefits of risk management projects and the impact of new information on the decision-making process. Timing considerations for financial risk hedging, insurance risk hedging and investment in new risk management projects are explained. Factors used for timing decisions include economic conditions, market volatility, credit rating, borrowing cost, capital adequacy and financial resources.