Description: The author discusses using a simple process for risk management.

Description: To inform and educate stakeholders for health plans and insurers on novel ways to optimize reinsurance structures to meet capital related goals and boost RBC and liquidity ratios. In lieu of traditional market-based financial instruments involving equity and/or debt, a quota share transaction can be used with potentially far more attractive terms and achieving essentially the same result.

Description: The 2021 Society of Actuaries Generations Survey offers results by race and ethnicity. This article is an interview with Alan Newsome and shares the results of the survey as well as broader issues to understand the differences in retirement security by race and ethnicity. It documents that there are major differences, and that the COVID-19 pandemic affected different groups very differently. It also raises issues related to societal conditions.

Description: Family caregivers are a critical link in providing long-term services and supports (LTSS), but they have significant unmet needs. To better support family caregivers, Congress authorized the Recognize, Assist, Include, Support, & Engage (RAISE) Family Caregivers Act in 2018 and created the RAISE Family Caregiving Advisory Council. The Council identified recommendations to serve as the backbone of a national strategy to improve the physical, emotional and financial well-being of family caregivers. A new report, "Asking Directions: Mapping a Course to Support Family Caregivers," identifies specific actions across a variety of players for meeting the Council’s recommendations. It summarizes insights from a year’s worth of strategy sessions and interviews with representatives of over 100 organizations. The report brings together thoughts on best practices and the most critical action steps from national and state organizations, county health providers, the direct care workforce, large and small employers, aging and disability organizations, faith-based groups, respite care providers and more. This article summarizes the research methods and key findings of the report and the work conducted by the Leading Age LTSS Center @UMass Boston and Community Catalyst’s Center for Consumer Engagement in Health Innovation.

Description: Research Objective The Society of Actuaries Research Institute General Insurance Research Committee is seeking researchers to identify and analyze the various by-component inflationary forces on pet insurance affordability in the United States and Canada. In addition, we seek ideation of potential solutions that are likely to improve the affordability of pet insurance.

Description: News stories from this past year have included a steady stream of reporting about events associated with climate risk. Photos of devastation from this past summer’s wildfires, deaths caused by heat waves, and suffering from other severe weather events have made clear the far-reaching impact of these events. In addition, there is an increase in concern in longer term non-catastrophic changes (e.g., air quality, higher heat indices, etc.) that may impact such things as land use and health and well-being. As more encounters with these events have occurred, it has become increasingly evident that retirees and those approaching retirement can be both directly and indirectly impacted in their aftermath. This impact may be felt across several broad areas including: retirement investments and the economy; housing; governmental/policy shifts; individual retirement planning and risk assessments, financial institution changes, and additional ill-health and mortality. With these issues in mind, the Society of Actuaries (SOA) Research Institute’s Aging and Retirement, and Catastrophe and Climate Strategic Research Programs (“sponsors”) have partnered on this research effort to explore this topic from the perspectives of a variety of retirement system stakeholders. The result of this effort is intended to provide a useful resource for readers to become well-grounded on the issues surrounding the impact of climate risk on retirement and set the stage for future research.

Description: Actuarial Research Topics for Long Term Services and Supports (LTSS)

Description: The Emerging Issues in Underwriting Survey was intended for direct life writing insurance companies in the US and Canada. The Survey looked at various trends that could have a significant impact on the process and practices of life insurance underwriting in the future.

Description: This tool created graphs of Google's mobility Data. This version of the tool contains state-level U.S. data through July 31, 2020

Description: This research initiates the development of a repository of information for existing climate and environmental sustainability research of interest to actuaries.