Description: Chairperson’s Corner

Description: An overview of John Robinson's experience at the recently concluded annual meeting of the Caribbean Actuarial Association in Trinidad.

Description: Carlos Arocha, the 2022 Chair of the International Section Council, introduces the articles featured in the current newsletter issue. In addition, he highlights recent and planned activities undertaken by the section.

Description: In this fifth issue of International News of 2022, we feature the following contributions: (1) Ruben John John Callo, FSA, FIAA, FLMI, and the SOA’s Ambassador to Australia under the Ambassador Program , presents an illustrative study aimed at helping consumers choose life insurance products using the “customer value per dollar” methodology, and although examples included relate to the Australian market, the methodological principles can be adopted in other markets; (2) Shirley Z. Song, FSA, MAAA, Member of the International Section Council, Josh Dobiac, MS,CAIA, and Yang Jing, deal with the Targeted Improvements to the Accounting of Long-Duration Contracts (LTDI), and the fact that both IFRS and US GAAP frameworks are evolving into a new financial reporting framework. The implications for US insurers are discussed.

Description: First from a comparison of U.S. and Japanese interest rates, abrupt switch to sumo, because sumo is life! Okay, it is not -- in March 2022, there was an upset win when a tall but li wrestler won the tournament. Just as in sumo, when it's not the more massive man who wins, we need to question our assumptions in our models.

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

Description: Update to the members of the SOA International Section

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: 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: 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.