“Addressing Ethical Concerns” is the latest addition to the Academy’s affordable Actuarial eLearning Center. This thought-provoking course takes a deeper, more interactive look at the ethics survey report presented by the Council on Professionalism last spring, focuses on the top perceived ethical concerns facing actuaries in the profession, and provides a decision-making framework for addressing them from the perspective of maintaining the high standards of the actuarial profession. See the upcoming March Actuarial Update for additional coverage.
Academy Welcomes Discussion of Meaningful Disclosures for Public Employee Pension Plans
The Academy announced this week it welcomes the reintroduction of the Public Employee Pension Transparency Act (PEPTA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and hopes the bill will lead to a discussion that raises awareness of U.S. public sector plan issues—how information is currently provided, what current disclosures mean, and what other information would be useful to the public.
“Millions of Americans—including state and local workers, retirees, and taxpayers—have a stake in the financial health of these plans,” said Academy President Tom Wildsmith. Read the Academy’s alert and news release on the PEPTA bill.
Alerts
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation released a final rule March 23 reflecting recent legislation and related guidance affecting the annual financial and actuarial information reporting under ERISA section 4010. Read the full alert here.
This month, the Risk Exposures Subgroup of the ERM/ORSA Committee released an exposure draft of a new practice note, Quantifying Risk Exposures for Own Risk and Solvency Assessment Reports. Read the alert here, and please send any comments to RMFRCPolicyAnalyst@actuary.org by April 22.
Alert subscriptions: Alerts subscribers are notified by email when a new alert is posted in their area(s) of interest. The alerts focus on five areas: casualty, health, life, pension, and cross-practice issues. Academy members may subscribe to any or all of them after signing in to the member section of the website.
Upcoming Events
CCIIO Officials to Present at Next Week’s Academy Health Webinar: Officials from the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) will present at the Academy’s March 30 webinar on the development of 2017 rate filings and the unified rate review template (URRT) instructions. This webinar is free to Academy members; click here for information and to register.
PBR Boot Camp at Capacity: The Academy’s inaugural “PBR Boot Camp: Basic Training and Beyond for Principle-Based Reserving Implementation,” to be held June 6-8 in Chicago and focusing on principle-based reserving (PBR), is at capacity, but a wait list is available for prospective attendees. Click here for more information. A reprise of the June seminar will be scheduled for September. We will release more information as it becomes available, and those who asked to be put on the wait list will be notified in advance of a general announcement.
Enrolled Actuaries (EA) Meeting Next Month: The Academy and the Conference of Consulting Actuaries will again jointly host the annual Enrolled Actuaries Meeting, April 10-13, in Washington, D.C. The meeting will offer a variety of panels and workshops, will cover a wide range of topics and issues relevant to EAs and other pension professionals, and include an exhibition of products and services. Click here for more information and to register.
LHQ Seminar Set for November: Save the date for the 2016 Life and Health Qualifications Seminar, which will be held Nov. 13-17 in Arlington, Va., outside of Washington, D.C.
Recently Released
The spring 2016 issue of Retirement Account features items on Senior Pension Fellow Ted Goldman’s comments to the Senate Finance Committee for its hearing on multiemployer pension plan reforms and challenges; the Public Plans Subcommittee’s comments to the Governmental Accounting Standards Board on a pension issues exposure draft; the Pension Committee’s release of the Variable Annuity Plans practice note exposure draft; and legislative, professionalism, and committee volunteer updates.
Public Policy
The Joint Academy Life Experience Committee and SOA Preferred Mortality Oversight Group submitted comments to the NAIC’s Life Actuarial (A) Task Force (LATF) on the removal of the provisions for unisex rates as applied to reserves.
The Role of the Actuary Subgroupsubmitted comments to the LATF on revisions to Section VM-31 of the Valuation Manual applicable to qualified actuaries for clarification and consistency with the Standard Valuation Law.
In the News
Academy President Tom Wildsmith and Senior Pension Fellow Ted Goldman are both quoted in Bankrate.com’s popular Retirement Blog regarding the importance of meaningful disclosures for public employee pension plans, providing more context to the recent reintroduction of the PEPTA bill.
The Academy’s news release on public employee pension plan disclosures was highlighted in BenefitsLink.com’s Retirement Plans newsletter.
An Inside Health Insurance Exchangessubscriber-only story about a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) letter on a one-year health insurance tax moratorium quotes Academy Senior Health Fellow Cori Uccello, who said, “CMS isn’t necessarily saying that the moratorium is going to translate to lower premiums in the absolute, but [premiums] should be lower than what they would have been with the fee.”
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