Description: A summary recap of the recent SOA Health Conference held in Dallas, TX in June of 2025. With the intentional use of AI to assist with the summary, this article gives a good overview of the recent conference with personal commentary from one of the attendees.

Description: Virtual - Session 1D: Pharmacy Risk Mitigation - Pricing, Programs, Pools, and Performance Guarantees

Description: Session 4C: The Impact of Medical Advancements on Disability and Group Life

Description: The COVID-19 pandemic helped accelerate many changes in the Health Care system that were already taking place. The major disruptions to the way providers operated was quite evident with shifting of focus away from elective services to create capacity for treating COVID-19. However, even before the pandemic, providers were adapting to changes in their environments.

Description: The presenters in this session will highlight the SOA’s work on an updated Medicaid underwriting margin model. This research project includes the model along with a set of instructions and a paper describing the key components of underwriting margin, including cost of capital and risk margin. The model was created as a tool for Medicaid actuaries representing both MCO and State principals to determine appropriate underwriting margins components within Medicaid managed care rates. Understand a brief description of the motivation for and underlying theory behind the model. Walk through different model inputs and run through some realistic scenarios that Medicaid actuaries may encounter in where they operate. By attending this session you will be able to: • Understand the role that Medicaid underwriting margin plays in Medicaid rate setting. • Understand the key components of Medicaid underwriting margin. • Understand the factors that necessitate underwriting margins. • Understand how to incorporate appropriate Medicaid underwriting margin levels in Medicaid rate setting.

Description: Increasingly, actuaries need to collaborate and partner with clinicians in order to be successful in value-based care and population health initiatives. Gaining credibility with professionals from different backgrounds, training and sometimes different objectives can be a challenge. Gain perspectives from actuaries and clinicians to discuss how to collaborate and achieve stronger results and outcomes. By attending this session, you will be able to: • Identify common scenarios where actuaries and clinicians need to collaborate. • Understand perspectives on how to partner and communicate with clinicians. • Describe successful strategies that take into account improvement of financial and clinical outcomes. • Understand how actuaries can provide valuable data to drive results and demonstrate outcomes.

Description: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released the final 2020 Actuarial Value Calculator and Actuarial Value Calculator Methodology

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: Similar to how states had made adjustments to their capitation rates to reflect acuity adjustments caused by the onset of the pandemic, states will need to modify the rates to reflect the unwinding since utilization patterns and average acuity per enrolled member will change. When the continuous coverage requirements set forth by the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) ended, Medicaid-managed care programs across the country adopted various approaches to phasing out maintenance of effort (MOE) as a result of changes to the PHE-era continuous eligibility requirements. Phasing out the MOE requirement will ultimately result in members who no longer meet eligibility requirements losing their Medicaid coverage. Further, states are facing a wide variety of circumstances and are implementing diverse approaches to the MOE phase-out. This topic will be of significant interest to all actuaries and stakeholders of the capitation rate development process for Medicaid-managed care programs. Join us as we discuss the operationalization of the PHE unwind while referencing the SOA's research project which models the effects of the unwinding on Medicaid eligibility and population costs. You will learn about the various approaches that different states have adopted to manage the unwinding process, which will be instrumental for accurately pricing managed care rates.

Description: The Mortality and Longevity and Catastrophe and Climate Strategic Research Programs are pleased to make available a report summarizing an expert panel brought together to discuss the impact of wildfires on U.S. health and life insurers.