Description: This article is intended to provide an introduction to microfinance and microinsurance. Microfinance began in the 1960's and 1970's as a humanitarian activity directed at the poor to provide micro loans for working capital. Microinsurance MI protects people in the low-income range against specific perils in exchange for regular premium payments.

Description: The Society of Actuaries (SOA) published its first COVID-19 research brief on March 10, 2020, followed by regular updates and expansions through June 12, 2020. The comprehensive report included a section of statistics that highlight the pandemic’s impact on economies in the U.S. and Canada. This report shows updates through September 30, 2020, to selected graphs from the Economic and Asset Impact section of the comprehensive report.

Description: As our industry rapidly adopts more advanced technologies, today's actuaries have more data and greater analytical capabilities than ever before. Nevertheless, these advancements come with their own set of challenges.Come explore the tools and techniques to optimize your processes and avoid common pitfalls so that you can get the most out of your experience studies.

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: Article from The Actuary regarding the medical malpractice crisis. could a macro system be the answer to a reduction in medical malpractice costs? Information in this article points in that direction.

Description: Evidence is building from the physical sciences that we are starting to reach some of earth’s limits. Unless we can find some technological solutions, once these limits are reached, we can expect to see a very changed world. Instead of having constantly increasing resources available to us, we can expect ever-decreasing resources to be available. Instead of seeing year after year of growth, increasing longevity and improving morbidity, we can expect the opposite.

Description: This article examines the history, theory, and effectiveness of high-deductible health plans and health savings accounts.

Description: This is a panel discussion about the economic outlook, particulary with respect to interest rates, the behavior since World War II and the outlook for the future. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1962, Vol. 14 Pt. 2

Description: Traditional predictive tools are not built to deal with the variability the world currently faces. The COVID-19 pandemic amounts to a prolonged black swan event, for which one must look past conventional assessments to arrive at any level of confident predictions. Behavioral analysis factors for biases and heuristics designed specifically for uncertain evolutionary contexts, and which are the primary drivers of market participants’ decisions at present. Through understanding the most likely behaviors of individuals, it becomes possible to arrive at an aggregate understanding of market outcomes.

Description: This paper suggests that individual decisions to retire are based on personal resource allocations, institutional influences, and social standards. The paper then attempts to create a decision-making framework in which to accommodate this range of influences. From Retirement Needs Framework, M-RS00-1.