Academy President Mary D. Miller announced today the opening of the dues renewal process for 2016, noting that membership dues will remain the same for a fifth consecutive year. Please click here to conveniently pay your annual dues without logging in. 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 2015 publications and achievements.
Final Speakers Added to Annual Meeting and Public Policy Forum Agenda
The Academy announced several additional speakers this week for our Annual Meeting and Public Policy Forum taking place in Washington next week in conjunction with our 50th anniversary celebration.
Samantha Medlock, deputy associate director for climate preparedness, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, will join Mike Kreidler as a panelist for the Nov. 13 plenary session on climate change.
Three panelists at a Nov. 12 casualty session will cover cybersecurity concerns: Christopher Schepis, director of the House Homeland Security Committee’s cybersecurity subcommittee; Mark Smith, assistant vice president for national affairs with Insurance Services Office Inc.; and Tom Finan, counsel and senior cybersecurity strategist at the Department of Homeland Security.
Jillian Froment, deputy director of the Ohio Department of Insurance; Sandra Starnes, director of the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation; and Lynn Dickerson, associate commissioner of the Maryland Insurance Administration, will be panelists for the Nov. 12 casualty session on price optimization. Joy Hatchette, associate commissioner of the Maryland Insurance Administration, will be a panelist for “The Changing Personal Auto Market” casualty session Nov. 13, joining Allen Greenberg and Karlyn Stanley.
Kevin Hanney, director of pension investments for United Technologies, will join Mark Iwry and Judy Mares for the Nov. 12 pension session, “Meeting the Lifetime Income Challenge With Employer-Sponsored Plans.”
Preview the full updated agenda and register here. By attending the entire Annual Meeting and Public Policy Forum, depending upon your area of practice, you will be able to earn up to 11.1 organized activity continuing education (CE) credits, 1.5 hours of business skills CE credits, and 4.2 hours of professionalism CE credits. Members with questions may email them to annualmeeting@actuary.org.
Canada-U.S. Cross-Border Discipline Agreement
The Academy and the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) have released a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) document that reflects our common understanding of how the long standing Cross Border Discipline Agreement (Agreement) works in both the U.S. and Canada. While the Agreement has rarely been used, we want to anticipate and address common questions from the joint perspective of our two national associations.
You can find the Cross-Border Agreement here and the FAQs and their answers here.
November/December Contingencies Released
The digital edition of the November/December issue of Contingencies is now available. The cover story, “Rising Tides,” outlines potential serious economic disruption looming as a result of higher sea levels unless action is taken soon. Feature stories include “Resilient Communities: Standing Up to Mother Nature,” which offers details on how better materials and building codes can help businesses prepare for extreme events; “End-of-Life Care in an Aging World: A Global Perspective,” which looks at the impact of changing demographics on health care systems; and “Communicating Longevity Risk,” the second in a two-part series on how mutual understanding is necessary to communicate policies and solutions in a way the public will find meaningful. Click here for the latest issue of Academy’s flagship magazine.
Upcoming Events
Pension Costs Webinar Set for Tuesday: The Academy’s Nov. 10 webinar, “Alternatives for Pension Cost Recognition,” will provide a discussion of an area of emerging practice to inform actuaries and other interested parties about alternative expense methodologies. Click here for CE and JBEA CPD information and to register.
P/C Opinion Seminar to Be Held Dec. 1-2 in Philadelphia: Space is limited for this seminar, which will be held Dec. 1-2 in Philadelphia. Actuaries who prepare or sign NAIC annual statement actuarial opinions on P/C loss reserves, or those who assist in preparing them, should plan to attend. Click here for seminar information, here to see the speakers list, and here to register.
ABCD Webinar Lineup Released: The Council on Professionalism (COP) webinar “Facing a Dilemma? The ABCD Can Help,” will be held on Dec. 9. Our expert panelists—ABCD Chairperson Janet Fagan and Kathy Riley, a member of the ABCD—will review the process for requesting guidance, discuss several case studies based on common requests for guidance received by the ABCD, and provide a forum for attendees to submit questions and receive answers. Click here for more information.
Webinar Looks at Health Care in Canada, Chile
Attendees from 300 sites and 21 different countries tuned in Tuesday to the last webinar in the “Exploring Global Health Care Cost Drivers” series hosted by the Academy’s Health Practice International Committee and the International Actuarial Association Health Section. This fourth webinar in the series featured speakers providing a look at the health care systems in Canada and Chile, focusing on the factors driving health care costs in each country; the challenges facing their systems in the years ahead, including providing long-term care, addressing inefficiencies, strengthening access, and improving transparency; and the role of actuaries in those respective systems. Slides and an audio recording are available on the members’ webinar page.
Professionalism Outreach Continues in Several Venues
Professionalism outreach was in high gear this week, as speakers arranged through the Academy’s Speakers Bureau addressed three actuarial club meetings. President Mary D. Miller provided a professionalism update on Wednesday to 300 actuaries at a meeting of the Actuaries’ Club of Hartford and Springfield, while COP member Geoffrey Sandler spoke on professionalism topics to an audience of 225 at the Actuarial Society of Greater New York’s Annual Meeting about 120 miles away in New York City. ABCD member Kathy Riley provided an overview of the ABCD and discussed ethics case studies with attendees of the Middle Atlantic Actuarial Club’s meeting near Baltimore on Thursday.
Alerts
President Obama signed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 into law on Monday, suspending the debt ceiling until March 2017 and lifting the Budget Control Act’s discretionary spending caps for two consecutive fiscal years. Read the full alert here, or in the members section of the Academy website under “Cross-Practice Alerts.”
The U.S. House of Representatives’ Financial Services Committee passed several bills that would increase congressional oversight of financial regulatory agencies and clarify systemic risk designation under the Dodd-Frank law. Read the full alert here, or in the members section of the Academy website under “Cross-Practice Alerts.”
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, cross-practice, health, life, and pension. Academy members may subscribe to any or all of them after signing in to the member section of the website.
Public Policy Activities
The Financial Reporting and Solvency Committee submitted a comment letter to the NAIC’s Emerging Accounting Issues (E) Working Group on the “ACA Risk Corridors Collectability” exposure draft.
The Pension Practice Council sent comments to the Treasury Department and the IRS regarding final regulations concerning Qualified Longevity Annuity Contracts (QLACs) and their advantages.
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