Description: Article focuses on a number of strategies that can be used to improve results in a DC plan. It is based on information from several outside sources. It encourages people with DB backgrounds to learn more about DC issues.

Description: Retirees and their advisors should construct diversified portfolios of retirement income, allocating among various retirement income classes that include Social Security, annuities, and systematic withdrawals from invested assets. This essay discusses the pros and cons of various retirement income generators and the issues with constructing retirement income portfolios.

Description: For a long time the primary focus of private LTC insurance companies has been to educate the public about the need for private LTC insurance and to make the product more acceptable to a wider population. To this end there have been numerous changes to the product design to make this product more acceptable to general population. However, one of the things that may have been overlooked in those product design changes is the need for alignment of policyholder and insurance company’s interests, which is to make coverage more affordable and to reduce adverse selection. Incentivizing good behavior from policyholders can not only make LTC insurance policies less expensive but also help policyholders make better health choices, which can help them stay healthy for a longer time. These incentives may also reduce some of the inherent risks in a long term care policy and may help in increasing the sales of private LTC insurance.

Description: Summary of the July, 2013 newsletter with an executive overview of each article.

Description: Applying behavioral-science and shared-value principles to insurance is a win-win proposition for both insurers and clients.

Description: The Behavioral Finance subgroup of the Health Section will be publishing a series of literature reviews in Health Watch. This is the first review of three in the series. The reviewed article describes an attempt to place an econometric value on consumers’ preferences between broad and narrow networks.

Description: This essay advocates that the transition from DB to DC plans won't be complete until plan sponsors offer programs of retirement income in their DC plans. The essay discusses the relevant actuarial and behavioral issues.

Description: This article describes seven results from behavioral finance that actuaries may find useful: heuristics, the endowment effect, loss aversion, prospect theory, satisficing, strategic thinking and agent-based modeling.

Description: A review of the academic article "Health Insurance for ‘Humans’: Information Frictions, Plan Choice, and Consumer Welfare."

Description: Introduces the new behavioral finance subgroup and talks about why such a subgroup is needed.