HPC Sends Letters to Congress Cautioning Against Repealing ACA Without Replacement
The Health Practice Council sent letters to the U.S. House and Senate this week, highlighting the potential adverse consequences of repealing provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) without having a replacement approach in place, and highlighting the challenges that could result from eliminating the reimbursements to insurers for cost-sharing reduction subsidies. The Academy also issued a news release on the letters, which drew widespread media coverage. (See “In the News,” below.)
The letters note that eliminating cost-sharing reduction subsidies could result in insurer losses and solvency challenges, and potential market reduction that could lead to millions of Americans losing their health insurance. Eliminating provisions that encourage enrollment also could threaten the individual health insurance market’s sustainability, boosting premiums for the remaining pool, and increasing risks could lead to insurer withdrawals from the market, the letters state.
ASB Approves Exposure of Proposed ASOP on Setting Assumptions
The Actuarial Standards Board (ASB) approved an exposure draft of a proposed new actuarial standard of practice (ASOP), Setting Assumptions. The proposed ASOP will apply to actuaries when performing actuarial services that include setting assumptions or assessing the reasonableness of assumptions set by others.
While certain practice-specific assumption-setting standards exist, the ASB believes it will be useful to issue a standard on assumption setting for all practice areas as a supplement to the guidance that currently exists. The comment deadline for the exposure draft is April 30, 2017. Information on how to submit comments can be found in the draft.
Academy Releases Essential Elements on Managing Risks in Cyberspace
The Academy released Managing the Risks in Cyberspace, an Essential Elements report that explores insurance issues surrounding cyberattacks, including risks from data theft or malicious software. The Essential Elements series is designed to make actuarial analyses of public policy issues clearer to general audiences.
Academy Volunteers Present at NAIC Fall National Meeting
Academy volunteers gave multiple presentations at the NAIC Fall 2016 National Meeting in Miami, which continues through this weekend.
The Annuity Reserves Work Group provided a non-variable annuity principle-based reserving (PBR) update to the NAIC Life Actuarial Task Force’s (LATF) VM-22 Subgroup.
The Longevity Risk Task Forcegave an update to LATF on its work, including creating a methodology for recognizing longevity risk in statutory reserves and risk-based capital and reviewing regulatory and company approaches to longevity risk.
The Joint Academy Life Experience Committee and the Society of Actuaries (SOA) Preferred Mortality Oversight Grouppresented an update on the new joint initiative of the Academy and the SOA in formulating a work group to address a LATF request for information on accelerated underwriting mortality under VM-20. The group also presented an update on guaranteed and simplified issue and preneed mortality tables.
Reserve Your Copy of the P/C Loss Reserve Law Manual
The 2016 Property/Casualty Loss Reserve Law Manual is available for pre-order. The manual, available next month, is updated annually in numerous formats and is designed to help appointed actuaries comply with NAIC Annual Statement requirements for statements of actuarial opinion.
Sold-Out P/C Opinion Seminar Held in Chicago
Nearly 80 actuaries attended this week’s 2016 Seminar on Effective P/C Loss Reserve Opinions in Chicago. The two-day seminar boosted participants’ expertise on the latest regulations and standards and included reviews of actuarial qualification standards, and interactive case studies.
Upcoming Events
Professionalism Webinar on ASOP No. 41: Join the Academy on Wednesday, Dec. 21, from noon to 1:30 p.m. EST for the professionalism webinar, “Can You Hear Me Now? Actuarial Communications Under ASOP No. 41.” The webinar—suitable for actuaries in all practice areas—will feature Actuarial Board for Counseling and Discipline (ABCD) vice chairpersons Janet Carstens and Rick Block, who will discuss ASOP No. 41, Actuarial Communications, through the lens of their ABCD experience. Using case studies and examples based on requests for guidance and cases submitted to the ABCD, they will discuss documentation and communication in environments that have prompted actuaries to seek counseling and provide guidance on how to apply this ASOP, which is likely to touch nearly every assignment an actuary works on. Paul Kollmer-Dorsey, the Academy’s director of professionalism, will moderate. Register today.
See our website for a listing of all Academy events.
Alerts
The U.S. Department of the Treasury issued an interim final rule Wednesday to implement changes to the certification process for the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program (TRIP), as required by the TRIP Reauthorization Act of 2015.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 6392, the Systemic Risk Designation Improvement Act of 2016, by a vote of 252-161.
Subscribe to Member Alerts: Subscribers to the Academy’s alerts are notified by email when a new alert is posted in their area(s) of interest. The alerts are available in five areas of focus: casualty, health, life, pension, and cross-practice issues. Academy members may subscribe to any or all of them free of charge as a member service after signing in to the member section of the website.
Public Policy Activities
The ERM/ORSA Committeesubmitted comments to the NAIC’s Group Solvency Issues (E) Working Group on the Form F Guidance Manual exposure draft.
The Financial Reporting Committee released a new white paper on considerations for actuaries in implementing the FASB Short-Duration Contract Disclosures.
CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” program broadcast an interview with Andy Slavitt, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ acting administrator, discussing health care and ACA issues, in which Slavitt cited the Academy’s letters to the U.S. House and Senate. The video is available on CNBC’s website, along with a story discussing Slavitt’s comments.
Associations Now, a newsletter reporting on association and nonprofit activities and trends, featured a story on the release of the Actuaries Climate Index.
A LifeHealthPro story covering last week’s House hearing on long-term care insurance (LTCI) quoted Health Practice Council member Laurel Kastrup, who testified on behalf of the Academy on the importance of actuarial input to considering, designing, and evaluating a potential LTC policy approach.
The trade journal EcoBuilding Pulse used the analysis in the Academy’s “Climate Change” Essential Elements paper, which was updated this month, to help explain the impact of climate change on exterior specialty contractors that do replacement work.
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