Description: Sustainable operations under changes in accounting principles and solvency standards

Description: Introduce basic concepts of the Health Risk-Based Capital and show case a few strategies around Risk-Based Capital.

Description: While the major market crash subsequent to the widespread contagion of the COVID-19 virus was readily predictable, the rapid recovery and ongoing growth subsequent to it was not. Market dynamics around the recovery resist characterization by most traditional analytical approaches. In examining the circumstances around the emergence of a large retail class of investors, one sees that ingrained human tendencies, particularly optimism bias, have fueled much investor behavior responsible for the recovery. Understanding this makes it possible to predict potential future crashes and develop behavioral interventions for subsequent market recoveries.

Description: S&P Global released its initial version of proposed changes regarding its Insurer Risk-Based Capital Adequacy methodology and assumptions on Dec. 6th, 2021. Unlike prior guidance notes or criteria releases, the proposed changes comprehensively updated the current S&P rating criteria released in 2010. These updates would directly impact many insurers. S&P Global anticipates that 10 percent of existing ratings in the insurance sector would be impacted and the change would lead to more positive rating implications than negative impact. This article focuses on the proposed changes on the S&P risk-based capital (RBC) vs. the current model, then simulate impacts to a representative U.S. life insurer through an illustrative case study.

Description: The implementation of the IFRS 17 insurance accounting standard has brought significant changes to the financial reporting landscape of insurance companies. With new disclosure requirements and altered profit analysis, understanding and interpreting future profitability have become a topic of concern for the industry. While stability remains a key objective for insurance companies, the earning patterns might become more volatile especially when the contractual service margin (CSM) is exhausted, and a loss component (LC) needs to be established. Reinsurance, a common risk mitigation tool, can play a pivotal role in managing earnings volatility and minimizing losses for onerous measurement units. In this article, we propose a new key performance indicator (KPI) called “loss recoverability” to assess the performance of reinsurance treaties in achieving these objectives. We explain how this KPI can be utilized in multiple scenarios to evaluate the effectiveness of reinsurance strategies and pursue stability in earning patterns.

Description: it discusses the framework and modeling of the market consistent valuation of fixed indexed annuity, against the backdrop of the convergence of accounting standards and internal risk management.

Description: Since most cash flows being discounted in the value calculation are dependent on the forward rates, in the key-rate calculation forwards (not spots) should be shifted. I will show that if spots are shifted up/down, they would not necessarily result in forwards being up/down for all the years in the particular key rate, resulting in unexpected results. I will further show how metrics calculated by shifting forwards versus spots enhance the accuracy of the approximation of projected value in various rate environments.