Bennett Testifies Before Texas House Insurance Committee
Senior Life Fellow Nancy Bennett testified virtually before the Texas House Committee on Insurance, which held an informational hearing Tuesday. Bennett gave an overview on the Academy’s mission and the actuarial profession’s role in insurance across practice areas. She also addressed the significance of actuarial professionalism and the role of the actuary in public policy. “Actuaries are a knowledgeable and valuable resource to regulators and policymakers as they develop laws, regulations, and rules for the insurance and retirement industries,” she told the committee. Her remarks highlighted the Academy’s work on COVID-19’s effect on automobile insurance, business interruption insurance, a possible design for a federal pandemic risk insurance program, and how the pandemic could affect 2022 health insurance premiums. She discussed the increased use of Big Data in insurance underwriting, artificial intelligence, and other ways to enhance efficiency. And, she noted the exploration of disparities related to race, gender, and other types of risk classification, including any lingering effects from past practices. Other witnesses presented from the perspective of the state Department of Insurance and on the state’s recent snowstorms and power-grid outages.
Gibson Presents at Midwest Actuarial Forum
Senior Casualty Fellow Rich Gibson presented at the Midwest Actuarial Forum’s Virtual Spring Meeting Webinar on Friday, giving an overview of recent property/casualty public policy developments, including presumptive benefits in workers’ compensation, proposals to provide federal support for coverage in the event of business interruption brought on by pandemics, the National Flood Insurance Program, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (NAIC) initiative to address race and insurance, and other issues. The overview drew from the Academy’s comments, issue briefs, policy papers, and other efforts to inform policymakers, actuaries, and the public about the implications of, and actuarial perspectives on, key P/C issues.
P/C RBC Committee Submits Major Underwriting Risk Factors Report to NAIC
The Academy’s Property and Casualty Risk-Based Capital Committee issued a major report to the NAIC’s Property and Casualty Risk-Based Capital (E) Working Group in which it presents indicated Line of Business Underwriting Risk Factors for the P&C RBC Formula. This is the first in a series of three reports the committee has been developing; the second and third focusing on investment income adjustment and loss concentration factors, respectively.
Recently Released
In the March/April edition of Contingencies, the cover story “Irrationally Yours—An Introduction to Logical Fallacies” offers a survey view of universal logical fallacies—thought distortions everyone falls victim to from time to time. Also, “Passport for Care—Patient Access, Quality, and Innovation Around the World” explores patient access, quality of care, and innovation in several countries; and “5G and Insurance—A Match for the Ages?” looks at how the latest wireless paradigm is expected to shake up the business landscape, including that of the insurance world. Plus, Tom Campbell’s President’s Message on reliance; Up to Code looks at the art of the possible; and the Actuarial Job Seeker supplement contains a new feature on the actuaries of the “Oregon Trail Generation”—look to this micro-generation for tech-savvy, adaptable leadership.
Actuaries Climate Index Updated With Summer 2020 Data
The Actuaries Climate Index (ACI) has been updated with data from summer 2020, with the five-year moving average reaching a new high for the 10th consecutive quarter, now sitting at 1.23 points above the reference period of 1961–1990. The ACI’s “seasonal measure of changes in weather extremes and sea level also set a new high for the three-month summer 2020 period, at 1.81, eclipsing the previous high of 1.77 reached in the fall of 2018 and the winter of 2016–2017,” said Doug Collins, chair of the Climate Index Working Group. Read the news release.
Two timely Academy law manuals are available for order:
The Life and Health Valuation Law Manual contains information to help appointed actuaries know the requirements of the NAIC model Standard Valuation Law and the Model Actuarial Opinion and Memorandum Regulation.
The ERM/ORSA Climate-Related Financial Disclosures Work Groupsubmitted comments to the NAIC Climate and Resiliency (EX) Task Force's Climate Risk Disclosure Workstream related to ongoing discussions and work on the NAIC’s Climate Risk Disclosure Survey. The work group has undertaken Academy research on the effectiveness of the survey and has been working closely with the NAIC task force which is considering whether and how to make changes to it.
A Next Avenue story quoted Senior Health Fellow Cori Uccello from the Feb. 25 webinar sponsored by the Alliance for Health Policy, “Medicare Solvency Projections and Potential Policy Solutions,” on the projected depletion of the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund.
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