This Week, July 23-27, 2012

Academy Election News

• Have you cast your ballot yet for the 2012 Academy election for three open regular director positions on the Academy Board of Directors? Email invitations were distributed Monday–Tuesday. The email invitations were sent from this email address, noreply@directvote.net. Paper ballots for those members who opt out of receiving Academy email blasts were mailed on Monday. If you have questions about voting, please contact the Academy at communications@actuary.org [1]. For a complete rundown of Academy election news—including profiles of the candidates and the candidates’ responses to member-submitted questions about organization mergers—visit the Academy Board Election Center [2].

Announcements

• Thank You to the thousands of Academy members who completed the 2012 Academy Member Poll. Results are being tabulated and analyzed for presentation in a few months.

Member Alerts

• Life Insurance Issues: The NAIC’s Joint A/E Working Group exposed for comment a revised Actuarial Guideline 38. The exposure drafts address in-force and new business separately. Log in [3] to read the full alert.
• Health Insurance Issues: The Academy released two Health Insurance Issues alerts:
  1. The Academy’s Rate Review Practice Note Work Group released for comment a practice note [4] on the new rate review and disclosure process under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and,
  2. The Congressional Budget Office issued two reports addressing the ACA. The first report discusses insurance coverage provisions of the ACA in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision regarding the law’s constitutionality. The second report examines the spending and revenue impacts of the “Repeal of Obamacare Act” (H.R. 6079), which was recently passed by the House of Representatives. Log in [3] to read the full alerts.

Website: New Postings

• The Rate Review Practice Note Work Group released for exposure a practice note [4] on the preparation and review of rate filings under the ACA. Comments are due by Sept. 4.

Upcoming Events

• Oct. 15 (National Harbor, Md.): Academy Annual Meeting and Awards Luncheon [5]. Stu Rothenberg, Political Analyst and Editor, will deliver the keynote address at this year’s luncheon (held in conjunction with the Society of Actuaries annual meeting). The luncheon is included in your registration if you are attending the SOA meeting. Academy members who are not attending the SOA meeting may purchase a ticket for $70.
• Sept. 11–12 (Los Angeles, Ca.): Life PBR—Test Drive the New VM-20 [6] seminar. Work hands-on with the new reserving requirements in VM-20 and apply them to real-life examples.
• Nov. 7–8 (Baltimore, Md.): P/C Effective Loss Reserve Opinion Seminar: Tools for the Appointed Actuary [7]. Actuaries who write P/C loss reserve opinions and who want to stay up to date on regulations and standards applicable in drafting loss reserve opinions should plan to attend.
• Nov. 12–15 (Arlington, Va.): Life and Health Qualifications Seminar [8]. Do you meet the specific knowledge requirements set forth in the U.S. Qualification Standards to issue actuarial opinions for either the NAIC Life and A&H Annual Statement or the NAIC Health Annual Statement? If you answered “no” or “not sure” then you won’t want to miss this popular annual seminar.

Academy in the News

• Pensions & Investments quotes Senior Pension Fellow Don Fuerst on the new GASB standards that will put more rigor into rate-setting in “More State Pension Plans Cutting Assumed Return Rates [9].”
• Long-Term Care committee member Steve Schoonveld’s NCOIL presentation earlier this month is featured in LifeHealthPro’s “‘Refine’ Long-Term Care Insurance, Actuary Says. [10]”
• “No One said Getting to PBR Would be Easy [11]” in LifeHealthPro discusses a controversy around including the Academy’s mortality assumption-setting proposal.

Recently Released Publications

• July HealthCheck [12]: Following the Supreme Court’s June 28 ruling to uphold the individual mandate in the ACA, the Academy is focusing on next steps in the federal and state implementation process and initiatives to curb rising health care costs.

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