Description: The rapid evolution of life insurance underwriting has created pricing and operational challenges and raised new questions about established approaches to assumption development, both of which demand a fresh perspective. As underwriting methods evolve, we find ourselves navigating uncharted territory. In this session, we delve into accelerated underwriting, focusing on two critical areas. First, we explore assumption setting in this new world, where numerous interaction effects can make it feel like we’re asked to consider everything, from every angle, all at once. Considerations for assumption setting must encompass early performance indicators—what signals inform our assumptions? Additionally, we address novel underwriting approaches and how to adapt assumptions for these paradigms. Furthermore, in the context of post-COVID claims experience, we discuss distinguishing meaningful insights from noise. Second, we examine declinable risks and their impact on mortality. In this new world ushered in by accelerated underwriting, previously excluded risks—low-frequency, high-severity declinable cases—are now part of the landscape. Quantifying their mortality impact challenges us, as historical data lacks systematic tracking. To quantify declinable risks, we draw upon research findings from analyzing 27 million life insurance applicants, providing valuable insights for attendees to navigate this dynamic landscape and make informed assumptions for pricing and risk management.

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: You have important information to convey…do you ever get the sense that your audience doesn’t understand why it’s important? Do you feel like your news is getting “swept under the rug”? In this session, explore how to bridge the gap between the information you need to share and how it's received by your audience. The first half of this session will contain a lecture focused on how to reduce the cognitive load of your information--that is the key to making your message easy to understand, internalize, and useful for making decisions. The second half of this session will allow participants to work in small groups to complete 1 or 2 case studies aimed at practicing the skill of reducing the cognitive load of their message.

Description: The Smaller Insurance Company Section Buzz Groups at the Valuation Actuary Meetings and the SOA Annual Meetings have always generated great discussions, ideas, and opportunities to hear about topics that affect the actuarial work of small companies. Join us for the Smaller Insurance Company Section Buzz Group to discuss the issues affecting Smaller (and larger) Insurance Company actuaries during these emerging changes. Bring your thoughts, opinions, ideas, and participation to discuss our special concerns.

Description: Disability and group life products can pose challenges for the valuation actuary due to the long-tail runout of traditional disability and group life waiver of premium claims, and due to the sensitivity of the reserves to small changes in assumptions. This session addresses a number of issues of interest to actuaries who work with these products, including recent experience trends and the new 2023 Group Life Waiver Valuation Table. Attendees will learn about best practices in the valuation of these products.

Description: 2024 is the 50th anniversary of ERISA and enough time has passed since the enactment of Secure 2.0. The U.S. Retirement system is mostly defined contribution. Gaps remain in U.S. Retirement Security and there are very different perspectives on how the system is doing. What is going well and what is not? Have plan sponsors capitalized on the opportunities in Secure 2.0?

Description: Have you ever wondered why some people are the focus of everyone's attention the moment they walk into a room? Executive Presence is the set of qualities that enables an individual to command respect, inspire confidence, and influence others. In fact, Executive Presence sets successful leaders apart from others. It includes a range of skills and behaviors including effective communication, leadership, vision, and managing your emotions.

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 highlight the growing significance of climate risk for insurance companies, emphasizing how to prepare for regulatory requirements as well as the impacts on financial stability and operational resilience within the industry. Attendees will gain insights specifically addressing climate risk within insurance operations including enhancing governance structures, ensuring regulatory compliance, identifying and monitoring metrics and key risk indicators, and conducting scenario analyses. Through real-world case studies and perspectives from both life and property and casualty practitioners, participants will leave equipped with practical strategies to navigate the complexities of climate risk management, foster transparency and accountability, and effectively address the urgent challenges posed by climate risk within their organizations. Learning Objectives: - Understand the evolving landscape of climate risk and regulatory requirements for climate risk disclosure - Gain insights into effective approaches and current best practices that actuaries and risk modelers may use in performing qualitative and quantitative climate risk scenario analyses - Learn practical strategies for integrating climate risk considerations into insurance operations

Description: Life insurance products have evolved over time from the early mutual aid societies paying benefits when members died to comprehensive products covering a range of financial needs over an individual’s lifecycle. While some life insurance benefit riders have been offered for decades and are well-established, recent years have seen a number of accelerated benefit riders being introduced by carriers for a growing range of covered triggers. Join us as we discuss these acceleration and extended benefit riders, trends and innovations in the space, and discuss challenges and actuarial considerations in designing, pricing, and modelling them. We will also explore issues carriers have experienced, how to consider the interactions between these benefits and the underlying mortality coverage, reinsurance considerations, and more!