Description: This article discusses how insurers that focus on their core competencies and astutely outsource other functions will become more competitive and improve their performance.

Description: A critical step in valuing a company for the purpose of financial reporting is the computation of the market value of economic surplus (MVES). This article provides a novel approach to the valuation of MVES that is stable and reasonably immune to “market noise.” Current approaches to the calculation of economic surplus of an insurance company generally define such surplus as the market value of the assets (MVA) supporting the liabilities less the market value of liabilities (MVL). While MVA is observable in the market, MVL is typically computed directly, without regard to the underlying supporting assets. Subtracting MVL from any value of assets that changes with market movements results in an unstable surplus. Consequently, a surplus that is not fully reflective of market sentiment has been rejected by many. This same approach is further used in the calculation of market consistent embedded value (MCEV) when a balance sheet approach is used .

Description: Table from an article in The Actuary Magazine entitled Outsourcing of General Account Investments.

Description: The ideal business situations for securitization would be those where a company faces significant risks or has significant growth opportunities and where conventional sources of risk hedging or financing are not available or are too expensive. Ultimately, securitization should be able to provide hedging and/or financing that is more effective and less expensive than the alternatives.

Description: Feature article describing a framework for the computation of credit capital requirements under the constant position paradigm, taking into account recovery rates.

Description: This is a chart from the article Shouldering the Cost of Employee Stock Options which shows the values at each node.

Description: This article discusses the attributes of a unified Operational Risk Management framework and how those attributes can underpin a seven-factor economic capital model.

Description: Why Write Variable Products When You Can Put the Money Directly into the Stock Market?

Description: This article explores the possibility of using innovations from the financial markets to reduce some portion of the LTC risk and thus encourage the growth of the product.

Description: Chairperson’s column discusses recent events in the investment industry.