Annual Meeting Highlights

• The Academy’s recent Annual Meeting and Public Policy Forum in Washington was a great success. See highlights, including video of remarks by former Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius; photos from the two-day event; and full transcripts of Academy President Mary D. Miller’s inaugural remarks, Academy Past President Tom Terry’s farewell address, and keynote speeches by Sebelius and Ben Nelson, former U.S. senator and current CEO of the NAIC.

Opportunities to Learn

• Closing Soon: Register Today. The Committee on Qualifications has updated its Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about all aspects of the U.S. Qualification Standards (USQS) for the first time since 2008. The greatly expanded FAQs groups questions by topic to help you quickly find what you are looking for. Join us Dec. 11 when the experts unveil the new FAQs in a webinar, Revised FAQs On USQS: Spelling Out The Details.
• An update on NAIC activities. Join us on Dec. 12 for the fall Post-NAIC/PBA Update Webinar. The webinar will provide an overview of the NAIC Fall 2014 National Meeting, an account of the Life Actuarial Task Force meeting, as well as recent developments relating to capital, captives, and other hot topics.

Reminders

• The Joint Board for the Enrollment of Actuaries (JBEA) has asked the Academy to alert its members that the JBEA is seeking applications from enrolled actuaries to serve on its Advisory Committee on Actuarial Examinations. The committee is responsible for reviewing, editing, and finalizing examination questions, reviewing statistical results of the examination, and other activities. The application period closes today, Dec. 5.
• The Actuarial Standards Board (ASB) is seeking comments on the second exposure draft of its proposed actuarial standard of practice (ASOP), Principle-Based Reserves for Life Products. The ASB seeks feedback on issues such as whether the distinction between the company’s responsibility and the actuary’s responsibility is clear; whether the language of the standard quotes or summarizes VM-20 text appropriately and usefully; and whether it is sufficiently clear how the standard applies to actuaries who do not sign the PBR actuarial report but are involved in the preparation of principle-based reserves. The deadline for comments is Dec. 15.

Academy Dues Renewal

• Academy President Mary D. Miller announced last month that membership dues will remain the same for a fourth year in a row. Payment is due Jan. 1. Please click here to conveniently pay your dues without logging in. If you prefer, you may also log in to pay and make changes to your account. Coinciding with the dues renewal, the Academy released The Record, which highlights the Academy’s 2014 publications and achievements.

Public Policy Activities

• The Casualty Practice Council sent a letter to U.S. Senate and House leaders urging reauthorization of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA), which is set to expire on Dec. 31.
• The Academy released assessments that grade five retirement-income systems and proposals using our “Retirement for the AGES” framework. Visit the AGES webpage to read the assessments and learn more about the AGES initiative.
• The Financial Reporting Committee submitted comments to the Financial Accounting Standards Board on its disclosure requirements for short duration contracts. 
• The Solvency Committee sent comments to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives supporting passage of the Insurance Capital Standards Clarification Act of 2014, which clarifies that the Federal Reserve has the authority to differentiate between banks and insurers in capital requirements. 

Newly Released

• November Actuarial Update: Read recaps from the Annual Meeting and Public Policy Forum, including speeches from industry thought leaders, education sessions with federal and state officials and industry experts, and awards honoring your peers; a primer on continuing education credit carry-overs; Academy presentations to the NAIC’s fall national meeting; and the Academy’s comments addressing Sovaldi and other breakthrough drug therapies and their potential impact on Medicaid costs.

Recent Events

• The Council on Professionalism held a Nov. 24 webinar, The New ASOP 6—Does Your Actuarial Work Measure Up? Volunteers from Academy committees on health, retiree health, retiree group benefits, and qualifications came together to update listeners on the recent update of ASOP No. 6: Measuring Retiree Group Benefits Obligations and Determining Retiree Group Benefits Program Periodic Costs or Actuarially Determined Contributions. They walked attendees through relevant data that California's Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) has recently made available via its website, explaining how that data pertains to the new requirements in ASOP No. 6 for developing age-specific costs.
• The Academy held its 2014 Seminar on P/C Effective Loss Reserve Opinions on Dec. 2-3 in Baltimore. The sold-out seminar featured presentations and discussions covering applications for updated NAIC regulations, ASOPs, and other topics relating to loss reserve opinions.

Academy in the News

• An Inside Health Policy story on Food and Drug Administration efforts to establish a standardized, faster approval pathway for promising drugs mentions the Medicaid Work Group’s comments on risk-mitigation strategies for Breakthrough Therapy Designation medications. The subscriber-only story is available through the Friends of Cancer Research website.
• A Commonwealth Fund blog post providing an update on state policies on existing non-ACA-compliant health policies cites the Academy issue brief “Drivers of 2015 Health Insurance Premium Changes.” The brief identified the transitional policy allowing renewals of non-compliant policies as a factor in 2015 premium changes.
• A Kiplinger article exploring different Social Security reform proposals cites analysis from a Social Security Committee monograph regarding the chained consumer price index (CPI) calculation method for Social Security cost of living adjustments (COLA). Chained CPI calculations include periods of economic inflation in the average and will typically result in a smaller change in COLA.
• Senior Life Fellow Nancy Bennett provided background on life actuaries’ use of data to Tampa Bay Times/PunditFact for a story on proposed changes to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. She noted that life insurance companies typically rely on assumptions based on experience or studies specifically related to the lives that they cover and not general census data.

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