The May Actuarial Update covers the Nominating Committee’s selection of Ken Kent as the nominee to be the Academy’s next president-elect. His extensive Academy volunteer service has included vice president of professionalism and vice president of pension, and he is currently a member of the ABCD.

A new paper from the Committee on Professional Responsibility, Professionalism for the Solo Actuary, was published this month. Actuarial Update asked some of the contributing authors—John Purple, Kathleen Wong, and Shawn Parks—to find out more about their views on the challenges facing actuaries working on their own.

The C-2 Longevity Risk Work Group submitted comments to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (NAIC) Life Risk-Based Capital Working Group (LRBCWG) on the exposure (2021-13-L), Longevity Factors and Instructions.

The C1 Work Group submitted a comment letter to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (NAIC) Life Risk-Based Capital Working Group (LRBCWG) on its exposures of proposed bond factors and instructions.

The Life Reserves Work Group submitted a comment letter to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (NAIC) Life Actuarial Task Force (LATF) on an amendment proposal form (APF 2020-10), which addresses inclusion of future mortality improvement (FMI) into principle-based reserving (PBR) valuation.

The Pension Practice Council published an issue brief considering mechanisms in place to help guarantee payment of pension plan participants’ earned benefits.

The Health Equity Work Group (HEWG) released the Discussion Brief – Issue in Focus, Health Equity From An Actuarial Perspective: A Deeper Dive Into Health Plan Pricing. This discussion brief, which focuses on questions related to pricing health insurance products, is part of a series to identify areas that may affect health equity. An introductory discussion brief provided an overview of the HEWG’s work.

The Committee on Professional Responsibility released a new professionalism discussion paper, Professionalism for the Solo Actuary. The ideas and suggestions offered in the paper are intended to assist solo practicing actuaries or actuaries practicing in small firms with respect to situations that they may encounter in providing actuarial services.