Description: Estimating premium deficiency reserves (PDR) for medical insurance and other short-duration health products is an area that not only requires application of actuarial judgment, but also alignment between actuaries, accountants, and regulators. Significant diversity of practice exists across the industry on a number of key issues, among them: how to group products for PDR measurement purposes; which future premium & claim cash flows to include (time horizon); forecasting future membership change; which administrative expenses to include; and how to think about investment income. In many cases, practices that are common in the actuarial community may be met with skepticism by auditors and/or regulators, and vice versa. This session will showcase the existing diversity of practice observed in both U.S. GAAP and U.S. Statutory PDR estimation, articulating multiple points of view on the issues noted above with a focus on finding common ground between actuaries and accountants.

Description: Explore professionalism topics of specific interest to disability actuaries. It will include discussions of items such as business challenges, actuarial standards of practice, and methods to address problems in a proactive manner.

Description: On March 6, 2023, The Wall Street Journal hosted its Health Forum, a hybrid all-day event. The virtual meeting featured 11 different events. This white paper focuses on those events. The sessions were informative and fast-paced, with each one providing a quick hit of relevant and cutting-edge information around health care.

Description: The Society of Actuaries Research Institute developed a new study to explore pharmacy financing. The goals of the SOA related to this research are to identify opportunities to increase transparency, encourage competition, align stakeholder incentives and mitigate increases in total cost of care. The research uses a value-based methodology.

Description: Can you answer the question, 'What are the chances we will lose more than $1 million?' without saying, 'It depends'? If you miss a projection, can you estimate the chances that the miss was due to random variation versus an incorrect projection? Listen in as presenters demonstrate how to answer these questions and others using total risk analysis. Total risk analysis includes quantifying both the random variation risk and the projection risk associated with actuarial functions like pricing and reserving. After attending this session, you will be able to describe total risk analysis and to apply to many health actuarial functions.

Description: Come check out a diverse panel of health actuaries available to help guide you around the track for any question you may have. An ACA question - we have it covered! A valuation question - we will find a solution. A professionalism issue - we will make a ruling! A regulatory concern - we will help guide the way! No question is off limits! There are no stupid questions!

Description: Using the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) database, we examined which characteristics best predict and describe high-cost members.

Description: Is your development team or IT staff growing tired of last-minute requests to include additional functionality? Have you strained to explain challenging actuarial topics to non-actuarial staff for implementation? Do your teams find themselves revisiting deadlines & timelines when building solutions? During this interactive panel discussion, three technologists (two software engineering managers and one data scientist) along with three actuaries will discuss real world problems and approaches using experience from previous projects. Although the challenge of running efficient software teams is not unique to actuarial science, this webcast will discuss best practices on how to organize teams to reduce friction and context switching. Presenters will also explore unique actuarial challenges and concepts including how to address standards on data quality when building software, how to build intuitive software that meets actuarial standards and how test-driven development makes it easier to meet actuarial standards of practice.

Description: Level funded products often target the small group market (2-50) and can result in many manual and tedious processes for underwriting to perform risk assessment. Learn how a carrier used technology to help automate risk assessment without the need for paper medical questionnaires, and exposed a risk engine for broker quoting to enable near real-time of pricing for risk-based products. The approach reduced labor and allowed underwriting to focus solely on fallout cases while also improving pricing consistency. Discuss broader trends in the health market for risk assessment, including new machine learning cost predictions that can be used for automation and better predictions of future costs. Discussion topics will include underwriting guidelines, business rules, risk scores, and machine learning. By attending this session, you will have a better idea of new trends in risk assessment for small groups where no claims experience is available. And, better understand business rules that are common in underwriting for flags for review as well as how risk scores and machine learning can be used during the underwriting process.

Description: Planning for retirement is at the top of many minds. How do I save? When is the right time? What are my plans? But what are the impacts of your health on retirement? Learn more about the effects of a healthy lifestyle on retirement in order to maximize life span. Review more in-depth findings from a recent report sponsored by the SOA Research Institute’s Aging and Retirement Strategic Research Program and conducted by the Vitality Group, as well as other expert insights.