The Health Practice Council has released an issue brief, ERISA at 50: ERISA and Health Benefits. The issue brief covers the history of ERISA’s application to health benefits, subsequent amendments to the law, ERISA’s facilitation of coverage under employer-sponsored health plans, and its challenges. Released alongside the issue brief is an executive summary of the brief.
(October 17, 2024)The Casualty Practice Council (CPC) submitted comments regarding the California Department of Insurance’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Catastrophe Modeling and Ratemaking. Specifically, the CPC weighed in on the inclusion of the phrase “most actuarially sound” in the state’s regulations.
(October 17, 2024)The Retirement Policy and Design Evaluation Committee released an issue brief, Collective Defined Contribution Plans. The issue brief defines Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) plans broadly, provides some examples of CDC plans that exist in various countries, discusses some advantages and criticisms of CDC plans—and considers possible options to address the criticisms.
(September 24, 2024)
The P/C Committee on Equity and Fairness (PCCEF) released an issue brief, Insurance Fraud: Impacts on Premiums, Claim Costs, and the Public. The brief discusses regulatory actions to prevent and report fraud and approaches actuaries can take to quantify the damage fraud causes.
(September 20, 2024)
The Public Plans Committee released an issue brief, Public Pension Plans: Helping Members Evaluate Buyout Programs and Other Lump Sums. The issue brief suggests critical information that would help members compare the value of an offered buyout—a lump sum payment in exchange for some or all of their pension benefits—to the value of the lifetime benefits.
(September 11, 2024)The Individual and Small Group Markets Committee released an issue brief, Drivers of 2025 Health Insurance Premium Changes. The brief provides more details on the factors that are likely to drive health insurance premium changes in 2025 for plans operating in the individual and small group markets subject to Affordable Care Act rules.
(August 09, 2024)The Social Security Committee released an issue brief, An Actuarial Perspective on the 2024 Social Security Trustees Report. This detailed brief provides perspective on the latest detailed annual assessment by the federal government of the program’s solvency.
(July 22, 2024)The Life Experience Committee released a resource and discussion guide, Utilization Assumptions of Guaranteed Living Benefits for Deferred Annuities. The guide suggests some reasons why there may be a cohort that never utilizes its guaranteed living benefits (GLBs). It also provides sources of information on how to develop reasonable assumptions regarding GLB withdrawals.
(May 09, 2024)The Medicare Committee released an issue brief, Medicare’s Financial Condition: Beyond Actuarial Balance, that examines the findings of the 2024 Medicare Trustees Report with respect to program solvency and sustainability.
(May 08, 2024)The Public Plans Committee released ‘Surplus’ Considerations for Public Pension Plans, an issue brief that examines plan “surplus,” what it means and does not mean, historical lessons for public plans regarding “surplus,” and considerations for plans at or approaching 100% funding in the future.
(April 11, 2024)The Pension Committee released an issue brief, Aligning the PBGC’s Single-Employer Premium Structure With Its Objectives, which discusses options for modifying the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s (PBGC) single-employer premium structure to better support the single-employer defined benefit system, while preserving a strong level of retirement security. For more information, read here.
(March 05, 2024)A new issue brief from the Asset Adequacy and Reinsurance Task Force, Asset-Intensive Reinsurance Ceded Offshore From U.S. Life Insurers (With Focus on Bermuda), offers a summary of motivations, common practices, and relevant actuarial guidance for U.S.-based actuaries involved in reinsurance transactions based offshore, particularly in Bermuda. Read the Academy press release.
(February 15, 2024)Social Security Committee issue brief on 2023 Social Security Trustees Report examining the latest detailed annual assessment by the federal government of the program’s solvency.
(February 02, 2024)The Prudential Regulation Committee released an issue brief, Introduction to Insurance Group Capital Requirements, which focuses on U.S. application, including a discussion of the two primary approaches used to determine group capital.
(January 24, 2024)The Climate Change Joint Committee released an issue brief, ESG and the Actuary, which is intended to present some of the basics of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations as actuaries contemplate how ESG may impact their work.
(January 24, 2024)The Pension Committee released an issue brief, Church-Sponsored Retirement Plans—Overview and Considerations. This issue brief discusses the broad range of church plans and practices. Among other considerations, it discusses the impact on a participant of being in a church plan when the ERISA protections and provisions for U.S. tax-qualified single or multiemployer pension plans generally do not apply.
(January 24, 2024)The Health Equity Committee released an issue brief summarizing its "Health Benefit Design Innovations for Advancing Health Equity: Removing the Barriers to Successful Implementation" series.
(November 14, 2023)The latest issue brief in its "Health Benefit Design Innovations for Advancing Health Equity: Removing the Barriers to Successful Implementation" series explores how to better understand unmet needs and incorporate input from employees and plan members into the benefit design decision-making process, and Overcoming Constraints to Implementation discusses some of the challenges of implementing equity-enhancing benefit plans—and possible solutions. The lessons learned in discussions that led to this series of four issue briefs was the topic of a special Health Symposium: Health Benefit Design Innovations for Advancing Health Equity on Nov. 15, 2023.
(November 10, 2023)The latest issue brief in its “Health Benefit Design Innovations for Advancing Health Equity: Removing the Barriers to Successful Implementation” series explores how to better understand unmet needs and incorporate input from employees and plan members into the benefit design decision-making process, and Overcoming Constraints to Implementation discusses some of the challenges of implementing equity-enhancing benefit plans—and possible solutions.
(November 10, 2023)Social Security’s combined trust fund reserves are projected to become depleted around 2034,1 at which time its income would be able to pay only 80% of the benefits scheduled for its 80 million beneficiaries. It is important that Congress immediately focus on this issue because delay makes the solution more difficult, as it gradually limits the viable options to those relying on increasing taxes.
(October 31, 2023)The Committee on Cyber Risk released a new chapter in the Cyber Risk Toolkit, "Personal Cyber: An Intro to Risk Reduction and Mitigation Strategies." The chapter identifies some of the penetration points of cyberattacks from an individual’s perspective and examines how an individual can work to minimize their risk of being hacked.
(October 30, 2023)A new issue brief released by the Health Equity Committee provides an overview of how potential benefit changes are evaluated and how those evaluations could facilitate the incorporation of equity-enhancing benefit design features. These issues were discussed in the second 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.
(October 05, 2023)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.
(September 21, 2023)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.
(September 14, 2023)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.
(August 14, 2023)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.
(August 08, 2023)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.
(August 07, 2023)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.
(July 19, 2023)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.
(July 18, 2023)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.
(July 17, 2023)
