PLACE: Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza, 14th Floor Conference Center
(Located atop the Apparel Center, just west of the Merchandise Mart)
350 W Mart Center Dr, Chicago 60654

COST: $75 with dinner, $60 without dinner
(Reduced rate for retirees, unemployed, fulltime students: $45 with dinner, $30 without dinner)

Workshops cover a variety of hot topics in each of the time slots.  Please identify the workshop sessions that you would like to attend on the registration form. Make your reservation by faxing your registration form to Pat Pruitt at 603-452-8018 ASAP.  If you have questions, please call Pat at 312-751-3392 or Bob Aronsohn at 312-653-5677. 

We welcome and encourage non-actuaries to attend our workshops because information covered is relevant to a wide range of work within the insurance and consulting businesses.  Please share this with others who may be interested.

A2 – Investment Strategies for Retirement: Typical practice and ideas
         Dan Winslow, Winslow Financial & Kirk Kreikemeier
What does the typical person entering retirement want?  What are their goals, resources and plans?  What investment strategies are typically used?  What are the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy?  How do insurance products fit into the needs of retirees?  What investment strategies and strengths do insurers have?

A3 – Funding Status and Update of Social Security and Medicare
        Ray Berry, JPMorgan
As an actuary, do you get asked questions about Social Security or Medicare?  This session will provide a basic overview of each program including a summary of their financial status.  The Social Security portion of this session may qualify for non-core EA credit, but that has not yet been determined.

A4 – SoA Mortality Study, 2008 VBT
        Mary Bahna-Nolan, PWC
Hear the latest on the development of the 2008 VBT table and how this table compares to other mortality tables and experience.  Presenter will also provide a glimpse into the development of the new valuation tables for use under principles based reserving.

A5 – Medical Insurance Liability and IBNR
        Jed Linfield, United Healthcare
In this lecture, we will discuss the addition of statistical analysis into medical IBNR calculations and the communication of statistical concepts to non-technical audiences.  This lecture is based on a recent SOA monograph on Health IBNR.

B3 – Futurism Techniques
        Al Klein, AIG American General
This session will provide you with two additional tools to use for pricing, risk management, etc.  The two tools that will be discussed are the Delphi Method and the Prediction Market Method.  You will learn when and how to use these methods and how the Futurism Section has used these tools to tackle some specific industry issues.

B4 – Life Settlements (Protect Yourselves from Anti-selection) 
        Nian-Chih Yang
This session will provide discussion of the life settlement market and its participants:
? Brief history of life settlement market
? Role of the participants – agents, policyholders, investors and insurers
? The investors (hedge funds, banks, and AIG) and their pricing model
? Any inconsistency with the self support/ lapse support test result?
? Anti-selection and other pricing perils

B5 – Current research
        Chad Runchey & Matt Clark, E&Y
Presenters will discuss recent research about incorporating stochastic analysis to non-market risks, specifically lapse and mortality.  The session will look at the uses of stochastic analysis when measuring risk, and evaluating various risk management techniques.  

C3 – The Credit Crunch of 2007 and Subprime Mortgages
        Timur Gok, Northern Illinois University
Beginning in August 2007, conditions in U.S. and global financial markets deteriorated considerably.  The deterioration was triggered by continuing weakness in U.S. housing markets – in particular, by rising delinquencies in the subprime mortgage market.  As problems in the subprime mortgage market surfaced, investors lost confidence in securities backed by subprime mortgages, became more risk averse and pulled back from structured credit markets.  Not only did the drying up of liquidity in structured credit markets lead to higher rates in interbank financial markets and massive losses for investors and financial institutions, but it also threatened real economic activity.  This presentation explores how the credit crisis unfolded and brought the U.S. economy to the brink of recession and highlights some issues that remain unresolved.

C4 – Life Insurance Tax Update
        Bud Friedstat, KPMG & Arthur Panighetti, Northwestern Mutual
This workshop will focus mainly on life insurance company tax reserve issues with some limited discussion on policyholder tax issues.  Company tax issues discussed will include recent cases and rulings (including Rev. Rul. 2007-54 and Rev. Rul. 2007-61), reserve issues arising in IRS audits and appeals, tax reserve implications of recent NAIC activities including the movement towards principle based reserves, and other emerging developments (including activities of various SOA, AAA and ACLI groups and IRS Notice 2008-18).

C5 – New Research on Measuring and Predicting Longevity
        Gavrilov & Gavrilova, NORC
Two studies will be presented.  One explores the characteristics of young men recorded on US WWI draft cards that increased their chances of living to 100.  The other uses data from the Social Security Administration Death Master File to find the pattern of monthly mortality rates at advanced ages.

C6 – Predictive Modeling:  Quantifying Risk of Disability and Death using Medical Claims Data
        Greg Binns, TruRisk
The presenter for this session will show how predictive modeling techniques can be used to leverage the clinical information in your group medical claims data to improve your group life and long term disability results.