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 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.

Pension Committee issue brief examining 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.

A new issue brief released by the Health Equity Committee provides an overview of issues related to designing health benefits to improve health equity. These issues were discussed in the first of a series of workshops with stakeholders and decision-makers focusing on changing cost-sharing features, such as through value-based insurance design (VBID), as well as adding benefits to address health-related social needs. In particular, the brief outlines some of the decision-making process with respect to adding benefits and the challenges of incorporating more equity-improving elements into health insurance plan designs.

This issue brief defines discrimination (including distinguishing between discrimination, unfair discrimination, and unjust discrimination); presents practical methods for testing and monitoring algorithms; provides a regulatory overview of the issue; and identifies considerations for actuaries, algorithm creators, and regulators.

The Individual and Small Group Markets Committee released its annual issue brief laying out the factors underlying premium rate setting and highlighting the major components driving premium changes in the individual and small group markets for 2024.

This issue brief examines the key types of data bias that actuaries may encounter and focuses on the kinds of biases found in modeling data and the implications for algorithmic outcomes. 

Academy Senior Life Fellow Nancy Bennett and Paul Navratil, chairperson of the Life Investment and Capital Adequacy Committee, presented to the U.S. Department of Labor’s ERISA Advisory Council public meeting on pension risk transfers on July 18. They gave an overview of life insurance regulations focused on the regulatory framework governing solvency requirements, including the establishment of liabilities and required capital for benefit obligations that are the result of a pension risk transfer. Additionally, the Academy submitted the Pension Committee’s recent issue brief, Buy-Out Group Annuity  Purchase Primer, for the meeting record as a resource on “buy-out” annuity contract transactions from a pension actuarial perspective.

Digital assets and their roles in cybercrime continue to increase. This paper seeks to provide a baseline understanding of digital assets for insurance industry practitioners whose lines of business may interact with digital assets and highlight recent trends surrounding their use within cybercrime.

Pension Committee issue brief on pension plan sponsor role and considerations regarding “buy-out” annuity contract transactions.

Issue brief authored by the Lifetime Income Joint Risk Committee considering Experience-Sharing Lifetime Income (ESLI), a retirement income approach that shares features of both lifetime annuities and structured drawdowns.

The Active Benefits Committee released an issue brief focusing on the role of actuaries in employee benefits for health policy development.

The Workers' Compensation Committee released an issue brief providing an overview of medical marijuana laws and court cases—and the impact they have on the workers’ compensation system—to help actuaries navigate the complicated legal landscape.

The Medicare Committee released an issue brief focusing on the near and long-term financing challenges facing the Medicare program based on the 2023 Medicare Trustees Report.

The P/C Committee on Equity and Fairness released an issue brief that provides a survey of methods aimed at helping to identify and/or mitigate bias in rating for property and casualty lines.

The Academy’s Life Experience Committee released a discussion brief on the use of margins in life insurance modeling.

The Academy’s Life Experience Committee released a discussion brief on credibility in life insurance modeling.

The Academy’s Life Experience Committee released a discussion brief on the impacts of inflation, interest rates, stock market volatility, and potential recession on life insurance business.

The Data Science and Analytics Committee (DSAC) released an issue brief, Big Data and Algorithms in Actuarial Modeling and Consumer Impacts. It outlines big data issues confronting actuaries and initiates discussion on how big data and artificial intelligence impact the consumer insurance experience, and covers how insurers and regulators can collaborate to resolve potential issues. The issue brief follows an issue paper of the same name released in November 2021.

The Medicaid Committee released a public policy issue brief providing an overview of Medicaid managed care state-directed payments. The brief discusses: how these payments have evolved from supplemental and pass-through payments; recent changes to federal guidance governing them; and recommendations from the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC).

The Academy's Social Security Committee released an issue brief that explores a wide variety of proposals made over the years for changing the formulas for determining benefits by members of Congress, government-appointed panels and commissions, and outside experts, with an eye toward how the proposed changes would affect the balance between individual equity and social adequacy.

The Academy's Social Security Committee released an issue brief that explores a wide variety of proposals made over the years for increasing the system’s revenue by members of Congress, government-appointed panels and commissions, and outside experts.

The Academy's Lifetime Income Risk Joint Committee released an issue brief that that provides a discussion of a variety of approaches for adding annuity options to defined contribution (DC) plans providing for insured lifetime income that begins immediately, is deferred, or is provided under an accumulation product that converts funds to lifetime income.

The Academy's Lifetime Income Risk Joint Committee released an issue brief that provides a discussion of the various types of insured annuities available to individuals and their potential uses, as well as some relevant tax implications.

The Academy's Lifetime Income Risk Joint Committee released an issue brief providing a discussion of Qualifying Longevity Annuity Contracts (QLACs), which are insured annuities paid out one or more years after purchase, possibly starting at an advanced age.

The Health Equity Committee released a public policy issue brief on health care and health insurance system risk assessment and risk adjustment in the context of health equity. Risk assessment and risk adjustment are valuable tools that are used for a variety of purposes and are being reexamined to understand whether and how they should incorporate social risk factors.

The Academy's Social Security Committee has released a one-pager to accompany its issue brief on the 2022 Social Security Trustees Report examining the latest detailed annual assessment by the federal government of the program’s solvency.

Workers' Compensation Committee issue brief discussing the growing importance of telehealth for workers' compensation insurers, variations across different states, and opportunities for the actuarial profession to help all parties involved better direct their efforts and maximize the return of any telehealth initiatives. 

The Data Science and Analytics Committee, in partnership with the Racial Equity Task Force, released a major issue brief, An Actuarial View of Correlation and Causation - From Interpretation to Practice to Implications. The issue brief provides a discussion of key questions that actuaries may encounter as they work in the risk classification domain; actuarial practices surrounding data, predictive modeling, and risk classification that are also key considerations for public policymaking and regulatory efforts aimed at ensuring that insurance practices are not “unfairly discriminatory.”

Racial Equity Task Force issue brief discusses potential options to obtaining protected class information on insureds in the P&C insurance industry to test for practices that may disproportionally harm members of any protected classes. It also evaluates three general data collection methods—collecting additional data, capturing existing external data, or imputing data—for desirable attributes such as accuracy, efficiency, and the size of the data set.