Description: The Society of Actuaries released research in 2007, performed by Jim Toole, that develops a model for a U.S. individual life insurance company to consider its potential liability exposure as a result of a pandemic. Sponsored by the Mortality and Longevity Strategic Research Program Steering Committee, this paper updates several model assumptions including mortality in light of COVID-19.

Description: The article provides an overview of the federal tax treatment of long-term care insurance contracts, including a brief history of the tax treatment of long-term care insurance, the requirements that must be satisfied in order to be treated as qualified long-term care insurance under the Internal Revenue Code, and a brief discussion of qualified long-term care combination products and chronic and terminal illness accelerated death benefits offered under life insurance contracts.

Description: This article demonstrates that the alternative method of adjusting DAC amortization for actual experience fails to serve its purpose if amortization is based on amounts in force at the end of a reporting period. In that situation, the method would increase the amortization rate for excess terminations. Applying that increased rate to a lower basis, however, does not reliably reduce the unamortized DAC balance as required.

Description: A focus on the capital markets perspective and some of the products dealers offer to hedge and help mitigate capital costs and tail exposure risks. From The Actuary Magazine, April/May 2005

Description: Discusses the growing and evolving field of pricing and valuing stock option plans, and makes the case that actuaries are the professionals best qualified to serve clients in the field.

Description: This article discusses Jed Frees’ book in progress, “Regression Modeling with Actuarial and Financial Applications” which offers a synthesized introduction to regression and time series.

Description: A solicitation for letters to the editor of Expanding Horizons.

Description: Actuaries historically modeled new launches in pharmaceuticals by anticipating the expected change to the market basket. This became more complicated with the recent launches of gene and cell therapies as they address rare diseases. Rare conditions have low total member volume to study and some do not currently have a diagnosis code to identify them within claims data. Addressing this modeling challenge has been growing more important in the recent years with the number of therapies launching. What has the health care industry, and more specifically health care, done to enhance modeling and how should this be altered for the future? Additionally, historic modeling has sometimes incorporated a level of direct medical treatment cost offsets where studies have shown lower treatment costs are achievable. Can gene and cell financial modeling include cost offsets as well? And if so, what are suggested precautions or limitations to this effort?

Description: Enjoy an in-depth walkthrough of the facets of the lab testing world in this webcast. The agenda will include a discussion on genetic testing, which focuses on its general background, current trends and tests in the pipeline, as well as a focus on the approaches to achieve savings in lab testing. Finally, expect to check out sample actuarial analyses that will be used to identify areas of focus in lab management. Join us and take a deeper look into lab work in the actuarial health industry.

Description: Renal disease is a very heterogenous medical condition whose end state is dialysis, a recurring cost intensive medical condition. Dialysis cost is one of the major medical cost drivers in USA. Insufficient and improper care management in the early stages of CKD (chronic kidney disease) leads to early incidence of end stage renal disease (ESRD) among CKD patients which not only leads to high medical costs, but also reflects poor health quality.