Actuarially Sound

While the Academy does not lobby on specific proposals, understanding proposed and final pieces of law is essential, as they could or do directly influence every line of business where actuaries are involved. Here are some of the 2025 legislative and regulatory highlights.

Rural America faces significant health disparities caused in large part by an aging population and provider shortages. Congress, as part of the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is attempting to change that with the new $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Plan.

Research allows actuaries to embrace uncertainty proactively—to ask better questions, test assumptions, refine methods, and produce trustworthy data and analysis while also enabling them to move from reactive reporting to forward-looking insight. But such improvements aren't possible if Academy volunteers don't participate in the research process.

Open enrollment is here, and there are a lot of decisions Americans need to make as they mull their health care, retirement, and life insurance needs. Looking for insights? Academy volunteers have done work that could help.

The Academy's work in the health sector is reaching those in the know, author Katie Dzurec heard during her appearance on a panel at AHIP's annual State Issues Retreat in early October. The publication of the Health Insurance Market Dynamics Resource Guide this summer is just the latest example showing the real world application of publications compiled by our volunteers.

As cyber threats change and evolve, individuals, government, and businesses need to stay on top of potential challenges all the time, not just during one month of the year. Actuaries bring their expertise to the topic through their work on such things as cyber insurance and can lend insights that can help entities across the board.

Academy leaders, retirement experts, and congressional staff discussed the uncertainties facing Social Security and other retirement savings vehicles during the Academy’s second annual retirement symposium, Actuarial Perspectives and Solutions for Strengthening the US Retirement System, held Sept. 18 in Washington, D.C.

The Life Practice Council's work with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to help codify principle-based reserving for non-variable annuities in section 22 of the NAIC’s Valuation Manual is just the latest example of how this organization assists regulators to improve public policy.

The Academy presented its third annual Award for Research to Xi Xin for his paper, Anti-discrimination Insurance Pricing: Regulations, Fairness Criteria, and Models at the 2025 Actuarial Research Conference. The award recognizes an early-career scholar whose work provides an actuarial perspective on a public policy issue of interest to U.S. actuaries and policymakers.

As the traditionally primary caregiver to children and elderly parents in many families, women often log fewer hours on the job or leave the workforce completely, which may limit their Social Security benefits or their ability to save for retirement. American women earn less than 84 cents on the dollar than men according to AARP, a gap that grows even higher for older women. 

Throughout the meeting, while clearly keeping substance in mind, regulators deliberated and sought stakeholder input on all of insurance, but especially the three hottest topics of the day— AI governance, the evolution of the risk-based capital (RBC) formulas, and premium affordability. 

For years, the Academy and our volunteers within the Retirement Practice Council and the Social Security Committee have emphasized the need for congressional action. The program continues to head toward insolvency, which would impact beneficiaries and taxpayers alike, and demands the engagement and the expertise of actuaries.

While summit sessions addressed many key topics that are priorities for state legislators, regulators, industries, actuaries, and myriad stakeholders, a major through-line for all the sessions was a concept that has become very familiar at the Academy: interconnectedness—across areas and across people.

Emerging markets refer to the provision of insurance by companies operating within developing or transitioning economies that are experiencing rapid growth and increasing integration into the global market.

The panelists predicted that AI may one day be used to help shift the insurance industry from its current reactive insurance model (event detection and response) to more predictive (event forecasting) and even preventive (risk-reducing intervention) models.

The panelists, representing domestic and international perspectives from industry and the public sector, discussed steps stakeholders can take to minimize damage to property, as well as ways to spur communities to become more resilient.

The letter noted that the stricter Medicaid eligibility requirements and reduced federal financing would affect many stakeholders and that it was “important to recognize that while financing or eligibility policy adjustments may offer Medicaid program cost savings, these modifications also impact the other health insurance markets, including the individual and employer marketplaces.

Actuaries measure and manage risk, using data and financial modeling to help ensure insurance programs are on solid financial footing.

As the federal government decides next steps for this database, there are still many important aspects homeowners should weigh in advance of the first named storm of the season.

Wisconsin Insurance Commissioner Nathan Houdek said that increased private equity (PE) investment in the insurance space has introduced additional challenges, as regulators and PE firms often don’t speak the same language.