Keeping You in the Know—Recent Academy Activity, Feb. 14–18, 2022
Academy Operations Closed Monday for Presidents Day
The Academy’s office will be closed Monday, Feb. 21, in observance of the Presidents Day federal holiday.
Capitol Forum Webinar Series Returns on March 10 with Focus on Retirement Issues
Join the Academy next month for “Capitol Forum: Dialogue with DOL on a National Retirement Income Policy,” a webinar that will feature a conversation with Ali Khawar, Department of Labor acting assistant secretary overseeing the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), and will look at retirement policy issues. Continuing education (CE) and continuing professional education (CPE) credits under Joint Board for the Enrollment of Actuaries (JBEA) rules will be available. The webinar will be held on Thursday, March 10, from 2 to 3 p.m. EST. Register today.
Academy Engages on New Colorado Insurance Discrimination Law
The Academy participated Thursday in the Colorado Division of Insurance stakeholder engagement meeting on unfair discrimination in insurance practices. The meeting, chaired by Colorado Insurance Commissioner Mike Conway, is the first in a series of meetings as part of a process to implement a new law to regulate insurers using external consumer data and information sources, algorithms, and predictive models. Although the law affects all lines of insurance, Thursday’s engagement focused on life issues.
Sue Bartholf, chairperson of the Academy’s Life Underwriting and Risk Classification Work Group, addressed her remarks to comments made in a letter to Commissioner Conway by Academy President Maryellen Coggins earlier this month. Bartholf reiterated the Academy’s support of efforts to prevent unfair discrimination in insurance and outlined the principles for approaches to identify and address unfair discrimination, noting that that differences between practice areas—such as the types of underlying risks, statistical modeling methods, and whether coverages are mandated or voluntary—will likely require different approaches in implementation, because the approaches that apply to one practice area may not apply to others.
Academy Releases Year-in-Review Public Policy Alert
The Academy released the 2021 year-in-review alert, an overview of some of last year’s significant regulatory and legislative developments of interest to the U.S. actuarial profession. It includes developments in federal health- and pension-related legislation and regulation; unfair discrimination in insurance initiatives; the Affordable Care Act; the National Flood Insurance Program; climate risk and cyber risk; big data and algorithms in insurance modeling; climate change; and pension issues including life expectancy as affected by COVID-19 and Social Security solvency and reform proposals. Academy alerts are available to subscribed members on the member login page.
Work Group Releases VM-21 Practice Note Supplement
Stay current with the latest regulatory requirements with the Academy’s annually updated law manuals. The Life and Health Valuation Law Manual and Property/Casualty Loss Reserve Law Manual are both available for order and immediate download. They are available in a variety of formats, allowing you to select the version best suited to your needs. Place your order today.
Plan Sponsor wrote about the Academy’s Essential Elements paper, “Clarifying Misunderstanding of Life Expectancy and COVID-19.” Business Insurance also wrote about the paper, citing Plan Adviser. Also, Government Executive mentioned the paper in its “Coronavirus Roundup.”
Advisor Magazine also wrote about the Essential Elements paper and the recent Pension Committee issue brief on the subject.
Coming Soon
Health ‘Hill Visits’—Health Practice Council volunteers will hold their annual “Capitol Hill Visits” when they meet virtually with federal policymakers and regulators March 10–11.
To update your Academy email communication preferences, please login and update your Academy member profile.
1850 M Street NW • Suite 300 • Washington, DC 20036 • 202.223.8196 • www.actuary.org
Copyright 2021 American Academy of Actuaries. All rights reserved.