Description: Highlights of Society of Actuaries research efforts in the financial services practice area.

Description: This article discusses the potential impact that low interest rates can have on the Life Insurance industry, even if they occur for a short period of time.

Description: The appropriate role for actuaries when advising on long-term investment strategies for individual retirement savings.

Description: Target volatility, as an investment strategy, has been used by many funds not only as a way to smooth return but also as a way to manage risks of the VA guarantees. Contrary to existing research which favors volatility targeting over fixed allocation, this article shows that because of the existence of market jump risk, target volatility strategy does not necessarily offer an improved risk profile for VA writers. Further, target volatility coupled with leveraging can significantly increase tail risk for insurance companies.

Description: This article summarizes the findings of the 2020/2021 Milliman UL/IUL/VUL survey. The survey covers a range of specific product and actuarial issues and the results provide a good tool for benchmarking

Description: A look back over 20 years to see how product topics of the day have changed and remained the same.

Description: This article addresses the issues of short-term volatility, the non-equivalency of traders and, how product development is being impacted by market consistency.

Description: Letter to the editor from a reader regarding a previous article titled, “Is This Correction Good For Life Insurance,” with a response from the author of the article.

Description: S&P reissued a second Request for Comment (RFC) in May 2023 that proposed changes to their insurer capital adequacy methodology and assumptions, and suggested these proposed changes may become effective at the end of 2023. This paper is to highlight the notable changes between the current capital model criteria and the proposed model. We also discuss major changes from the first RFC and the second RFC, as well as several key items that still require enhanced guidance and clarification. Our analysis is based on information gathered from S&P's public comments, conversations with industry participants, and publications released by S&P Global as of July 2023 when this paper was written. Most U.S. life insurers are rated by S&P using their U.S. Life Statutory Capital model, while other insurers use the GAAP/IFRS Capital Model. Statutory financials will remain the starting point for U.S. life insurers under the proposed model, however there will be additional adjustments made to these numbers in an effort to create consistency and comparability with other accounting and solvency regimes.

Description: Hubert Mueller describes why unit-linked products are increasingly popular in Europe and provides his outlook for continued growth.