Description: The August/September 2013 edition of The Actuary magazine—the Society of Actuaries’ flagship publication.

Description: The October/November 2015 edition of The Actuary magazine—the Society of Actuaries’ flagship publication.

Description: Often actuarial practitioners are faced with working with data that is less than ideal. The data may be observed with gaps in it, a model may suggest variables that are observed at different frequencies, and sometimes predictive analytic results are very fragile to the inclusion or omission of just a few observations in the sample. Data, particularly big data, are often "messy" and something must be done about it. What is the actuary to do about these very practical matters? These types of questions are what this presentation is intended to address. Concerns on missing data, outliers, nonlinearity, mixed-frequency, cross-correlations are illustrated using real datasets in the Asia-Pacific countries. Some possible solutions to the messy data problems will be discussed.

Description: This article describes a simple but powerful tool for use by valuation actuaries and auditors when evaluating current assumptions for use in GAAP net premium reserve methods that require retrospective updating for actual experience and assumption changes. As a supplement, this tool can fill some holes left by existing tools. It produces results that can be compared to materiality thresholds at any level of aggregation, from a single reserve cohort up to the combination of all cohorts for all products subject to retrospective net premium reserve requirements. It can also serve as a benchmarking tool for estimated the possible effects of an assumption change or to help in explaining the effects of an actual assumption change.

Description: Mr. Rallis will discuss trends in the market for risk transfer of defined benefit plans in the US. He will also address implications of increasing longevity.

Description: Discussion of the dangers of a product development process which places too much emphasis on the mathematical contribution of actuaries to the process.

Description: This is a report on Phase 2 of a research project on the role of automated systems in life insurance underwriting. This paper discusses: 1. How and why companies are using automation to make underwriting decisions. 2. Its impact upon operational efficiency, sales, and retention. 3. The quality of risk selection produced by automated systems. 4. Cultural acceptance of increased automation in underwriting. 5. Challenges insurers must overcome to implement and maintain automated underwriting.

Description: Intro article for newsletter focused on group long-term care products.

Description: Learn about key actuarial and analytic tools and methodologies used by commercial health insurance to identify and quantify drivers of healthcare cost and utilization (including wasteful and low-value ones) and risks. Use case scenarios in which these tools and methodologies apply, such as underwriting, reinsurance, medical management for population health and chronic diseases, managed care contracting, insurance market reform, provider payment reform, etc., will also be covered. Experience from the U.S., China and other parts of the world will be shared.

Description: The key tasks of credit risk capital project under CROSS II mainly focus onL(1 )Adjustment of measurement framework; (2) Calibration of risk factors, including both credit spread risk and credit default risk;3)Introduction of concentration risk measurement; (4) Higher requirement on look-through rule.