Description: The article introduces a cashflow matching strategic asset allocation (SAA) framework for life insurers. Given the recent shift to higher interest rates after two decades of persistent low interest rates, insurers have an opportunity to enhance their asset liability management by rebalancing asset portfolios to narrow duration gaps and attain higher risk-adjusted yields. The framework aims to align investment objectives with economic, regulatory, and rating agency requirements. It prioritizes cashflow matching as the primary optimization goal and incorporates security-level asset information to assist portfolio managers in executing SAA seamlessly. The article highlights the benefits of the cashflow matching SAA framework, including greater attention to cashflow matching, unbiased results, readily executable strategies, and stable economic reserves. A case study is included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the framework in improving risk-adjusted return and cashflow matching for a representative liability block.

Description: Interest rates steadily declining ever since the Volcker Fed tackled inflation in the early eighties. Ten years of stimulating monetary policy brought new lows. We should have braced ourselves for a return to neutrality, but that concept remains elusive. We will explore structural issues that have brought rates to these low levels and the potential impacts on the insurance business.

Description: The theme of this paper relates to solving portfolio selection problems using linear programming. The authors extend the linear optimization framework for Conditional Value-at-Risk-based portfolio selection problems to optimization over a more general class of risk measure known as the class of Coherent Distortion Risk Measure. From Actuarial Research Clearing House, 2012 Vol. 1.

Description: Institutional investors such as pension plans and insurance companies have enjoyed strong equity returns for a length of time with few historical precedents. Nearly a decade after the end of the financial crisis, strategies to provide downside protection remain expensive and the performance of traditional risk-managed funds has disappointed investors.

Description: This is the Introductory Study Note for the Society of Actuaries Advanced Portfolio Management examination for Spring 2012 that will be given on Friday, April 27th, from 8:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.

Description: This session 13TS of the Dallas Spring Meeting provides a basic background on derivatives and discusses how derivatives can be used in insurance and pension investment portfolios, how they are valued, and how they can impact the long-term financial situation of a portfolio.From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 27, No. 1, Session 13TS