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 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.

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.

The Economic Scenario Generator Subcommittee presented to the NAIC’s Life Actuarial (A) Task Force on acceptance criteria for interim rate levels. 

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.

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.

The Life Valuation Committee released a white paper, Pre-Tax vs. Post-Tax Maintenance Reserves in Stochastic Principle-Based Reserves. The paper discusses considerations of using various interest maintenance reserves in VM-22 applications.

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.

The Data Science and Analytics Committee (DSAC) released an issue brief, An Actuarial View of Data Bias: Definitions, Impacts and Considerations. The issue brief—the first in a new DSAC series called “Additional Considerations in Data Science”—looks at 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.

The Committee on Cyber Risk released a new chapter in the Cyber Risk Toolkit, "Digital Assets and Their Current Roles Within Cybercrime." The 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.

Academy Senior Health Fellow Cori Uccello presented on “Considerations for Calculating Cost-Sharing Reduction Load Factors” at the Society of Actuaries’ virtual health meeting.