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: The article summarizes implications of rising interest rates on U.S. GAAP and statutory financial reporting for life insurers, highlighting potential tailwinds from steady increases and headwinds from sharp increases. We further provide insights into how insurers can leverage ALM programs and interest rate risk hedging practices to favorably position themselves in a rising rate environment

Description: This article starts with the increasing attention that FP&A receives due to the implementation of new financial regimes and emphasizes the collaborative nature of FP&A. It then describes the roles that actuaries play in FP&A, the new demands for actuaries that we are observing, and suggests some best practices that we are seeing across the clients. This article targets to point out the new demands from FP&A on actuaries and provide some advice on how actuaries can do to meet these demands.

Description: This article provides an overview of activities that should be considered by an actuary when validating a predictive model. It describes several components to consider when validating a predictive model and provides an examination of various methodologies that can be implemented in the validation process.

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.