Public Policy

The ERM/ORSA Committee released an issue brief, Dividend Limitations—Affiliated Transactions. The issue brief focuses on two issues: 1) review of the existing dividend limitation—which is the maximum dividend that an owner may collect from the insurance company unilaterally without requiring approval by an insurance regulator—and 2) review of the effects of affiliated transactions as they relate to the dividend limitation. The purpose of this issue brief is to discuss the two issues and describe potential actions that could be taken by regulators, whose objective is capital preservation and policyholder protection, to address the issues.

The Social Security Committee released an issue brief, Assumptions Used to Evaluate Social Security’s Financial Condition. The issue brief describes the assumptions that must be made in any actuarial projection of the Social Security program’s finances and explains how variations in the assumption values affect the projections.

The Health Practice Council’s Medicare Committee submitted a comment letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on the draft part one guidance for the Maximum Monthly Cap on Cost-Sharing Payments Program.

The ERM/ORSA Committee's comments submitted to the Actuarial Standards Board (ASB) in response to the request of the ASB’s Enterprise Risk Management Committee to provide written comments on the Proposed Actuarial Standard of Practice: Enterprise Risk Management exposure draft.

Director of Research Steve Jackson presented on cyber risk at an International Workshop on Cyber Risk and Security during the Center of Research in Econo-finance and Actuarial sciences on Risk (CREAR) Cyber Conference in Paris, France. This is a continuation of the Academy’s ongoing Cyber Risk initiative, overseen by the Risk Management and Financial Reporting Council and the Casualty Practice Council.

The Pension Committee released an issue brief, Enhancing Retirement Security Through Changes in Plan Design and Related Requirements, that examines modifications to defined benefit (DB) plans that would make them more attractive for modern employers, and looks at ways to incorporate some of the more desirable attributes of DB plans into the more common defined contribution (DC) options that many employers are currently offering.

Senior Health Fellow Cori Uccello and Health Equity Committee member Rebecca Sheppard gave an overview of the committee’s work on equity considerations related to health plan pricing to AHIP’s Health Equity Workgroup.

The Health Practice Council’s Individual and Small Group Markets Committee, Risk Sharing Subcommittee, and Active Benefits Committee submitted a comment letter to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Labor (DOL), and the Department of the Treasury on the Short-Term, Limited-Duration Insurance; Independent, Noncoordinated Excepted Benefits Coverage; Level-Funded Plan Arrangements; and Tax Treatment of Certain Accident and Health Insurance notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM).

P/C Committee on Equity and Fairness Chairperson Lauren Cavanaugh and Vice Chairperson Susan Kent presented at the Colorado Division of Insurance’s stakeholder meeting on Unfair Discrimination in Insurance Practices, focusing on private passenger auto insurance. They cited key points, illustrative examples, and the committee’s February issue brief, Approaches to Identify and/or Mitigate Bias in Property and Casualty Insurance.

Academy Senior Health Policy Analyst Matthew Williams provided an update on HPC activities to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Health Actuarial (B) Task Force during its 2023 Summer National Meeting.

The Academy’s Life Experience Committee and the SOA’s Mortality and Longevity Oversight Advisory Council (MLOAC) presented to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ Life Actuarial (A) Task Force on 2023 HMI and FMI scale update at the NAIC Summer National Meeting in Seattle, WA.

An issue brief released by the Pension Committee, Valuing Gender Expansive Data, examines issues pension actuaries may consider when performing an actuarial valuation using sex/gender expansive data—data on sex/gender that is either missing or nonbinary. It also discusses several possible approaches to handling such data and setting reasonable actuarial assumptions.

The C1 Subcommittee presented to NAIC’s Risk-Based Capital Investment Risk and Evaluation (E) Working Group on principles for structured securities RBC at the NAIC Summer National Meeting in Seattle, WA.

The Life Practice Council (LPC) presented on current and future LPC workstreams to the NAIC’s Life Actuarial (A) Task Force (LATF) meeting as part of the NAIC Summer National Meeting in Seattle, WA.

The Economic Scenario Generator Subcommittee presented to the NAIC’s Life Actuarial (A) Task Force on interest rate acceptance criteria at the NAIC Summer National Meeting in Seattle, WA.