Description: Understanding U.S. defined-benefit plan annual funding notice definitions and what they are meant to represent is a key to understanding how “healthy” or “unhealthy” a pension plan is. This article offers a description of several types of funded status measurements and their applications under the rules mandated by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to fund private employer-sponsored defined-benefit pension plans.

Description: An update on the Capital Market Assumptions used for asset allocation maybe useful to actuaries given the parallels with the assumptions an actuary uses to measure plan obligations.

Description: This discussion looks at developments which may be expected from the introduction of proposed Canadian legislation which would permit life insurance companies to operate special investment accounts for pension plans. The panel also reviews problems encountered in implementing legislation of this type in the U.S. and other recent developments expected to affect the relative competitive position of insured and trusteed plans. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1961, Vol. 13, Pt. 2.

Description: Chairperson’s column discussing the state of the world today and how that influences investment strategies and describes to seminars the section sponsored to keep members apprised of changes.

Description: This project aims to understand pension participants’ investment and withdrawal behaviors and provide guidance in pension plan design, using data from China

Description: Over a short span of two weeks, the financial system has observed the collapse of two mid-sized U.S. commercial banks, California-based Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”) and New York-based Signature Bank, and a takeover of troubled Credit Suisse by a rival in Europe. Other banks that serve a similar demographic as SVB, such as First Republic Bank and PacWest Bancorp, have also experienced an elevated level of customer deposit withdrawals while their stock prices plummeted. The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) quickly stepped in and guaranteed all deposits from the failed banks to prevent a broader crisis in the banking system. The current turmoil in the financial system is a stark reminder of the importance of effective risk management and regulation.

Description: View the complete issue for the August 2014 Reinsurance News newsletter.

Description: Asia is experiencing changing demographic, social, and cultural tides which threaten to submerge existing retirement-pension systems.

Description: This paper will describe why self-insurance is less attractive with transparent-accounting rules, and the will examine two strategies an employer can execute to reduce the plan's and the plan participant's risks.

Description: Discussion of Living to 100 Session 5A. The papers presented propose a new method to price the longevity risk premia in order to tackle the pricing obstacle and reviewed the insurance industry implications on retirement planning and the secondary market in insurance.