Description: In this fourth issue of International News of 2022.

Description: Many countries have suffered the ups and downs of the COVID-19pandemic, and Mexico is no exception. Even worse, in contrast withEuropean countries that saw numbers dip during the summer of2020, Mexico did not. A first peak was reached at the end of July2020, then a slight decrease in the following two months. SinceOctober, Mexico has experienced the worst increasing trend of thewhole epidemic. In this article, Arturo Erdely, a professor of actuarialscience, explains this increase.

Description: Just in the recent two years, COVID-19 has demonstrated very impressively that a pandemic is not something for which one can fully prepare. However, what makes a pandemic so special and difficult to manage compared to other low frequency and high severity events such as volcanic eruptions or tsunami damage? Frank Schillerexplains what makes a pandemic so different, viz, information uncertainty, exponential growth, and time lags.

Description: In 2020, the Korean insurance regulator, Financial Services Commission (FSC), introduced a coinsurance structure allowing for full risk transfer—including investment risk, interest rate risk, insurance risk, and policyholder lapse risk—as a permitted practice. Expanding use of coinsurance in the Korean insurance market brings a suite of potential benefits to Korean insurance companies including increased financial flexibility, options to improve policyholder protection and shareholder value through optimization of business strategies. As such, FSC’s initiative and intention to introduce coinsurance opportunities to the market is commendable.

Description: About a year ago we published our whitepaper “Insurance Innovation Opportunities Beyond COVID-19”. In the paperwe made some predictions on what innovation opportunities the pandemic would bring to the insurance space. It ishard to believe, but we’ve already had a year of living with the pandemic. In recognition of how much time haspassed, we want to look back at a few of our customer realities from last spring set against the innovations thathave been delivered in the market since.

Description: The importance and opportunity, globally, of inclusive insurance is identified. We review traditional actuarial approaches, recognize their underlying presumptions, and then manage the issues raised. We clarify the process distinctions between traditional and inclusive insurance.

Description: Chairperson's Corner

Description: Created in November 2020, Actuaires du Monde (Actuaries of the World in English) is a non-profit organization registered in France.

Description: The International Actuarial Association Health Section, the Society of Actuaries International Section, and American Academy of Actuaries (AAA) published the report “International Health Care Funding 2020”. This article highlights the features of the report.

Description: Three consultants offer their views on a pandemic and post-pandemic economic future that awaits Mexico. COVID-19 deepened the contraction of the Mexican economy. As manufacturing and consumption bounce back, sustaineddemand for services can help recovery. But a policy push is needed. The global pandemic came at a time when the Mexican economy had contracted for five straight quarters due to avariety of factors such as deceleration in investment and private consumption and uncertainty around the free tradeagreement with the United States and Canada. The COVID-19 crisis accelerated this trend, resulting in the largest contraction since the Great Depression of 1929.