EVENT: March 2009 Workshops
DATE: Tuesday March 10, 2009
12:50 Registration begins
1:45 Workshop sessions begin (see attached schedule)
5:15 Bar opens (cocktails, beer, wine, soda pop)
5:45 Dinner
PLACE: Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza, 14th Floor Conference Center
(Located atop the Apparel Center, just west of the Merchandise Mart – directions below)
350 W Mart Center Dr, Chicago 60654
COST: $75 with dinner, $60 without dinner
(Reduced rate for retirees, unemployed, full time students: $45 with dinner, $30 without dinner)
Workshops cover a variety of hot topics in each of the time slots. Make your reservation online by Wednesday, March 4, 2009.
Use this opportunity to fulfill some of your continuing professional development requirements. Earn more than 4 hours toward your annual AAA and SoA CPD requirements while you meet and network with other local actuaries face-to-face.
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.
If any sessions need to be canceled due to low attendance, we will contact you.
Payment can be made in advance by credit card online at …. Prepayment is optional, but appreciated, as it speeds up the sign-in process the day of the event. Payment may also be made by cash, check, or credit card on the day of the event.
1:45 p.m. Workshop Sessions A:
A1 Investment Strategies for Retirement – Seismic changes all around us!!
What does the typical person entering retirement want? What are their goals, resources and plans? How have the dramatic events of 2008 changed retirement plans? What adjustments are high net worth and other retirees making? How are insurance company and other financial firms' issues changing the investor choices?
– Dan Winslow, Principal, Winslow Financial
– Kirk Kreikemeier, Principal, Pebble Valley Wealth Management
A2 Changes in Medicare Supplement
The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (MIPPA) of 2008 provided for numerous changes to Medicare, including important changes to Medicare Supplement plans. This session will describe those changes and walk through the timeline as we get closer to the June 2010 effective date for new standardized Medigap plans.
– Pat Fleming, Vice President, Product Management (Medicare products) for Conseco (Bankers Life and Casualty Company)
A3 International Accounting – How will it affect you?
The SEC has published a roadmap to switch from FAS to IFRS. FASB is working with the International Account Standard Board to issue a new unified insurance standard for all insurance contracts. This workshop will bring you up to date and the current status of "what" and "when".
– Doug Van Dam, Manager, Actuarial Services, PolySystems
A4 The Health insurance marketplace
This review of the health care insurance marketplace reflects trends and challenges faced by the multiple constituents of the non-Medicare healthcare delivery system.
– Roger Schultz, Vice President – Product Development, Trustmark
A5 New Immediate Annuity table
The report on the most recent individual annuity mortality study is expected to be released about the time of the conference. This session will present results from this study. This is the first formal study for these products in nearly twenty years.
– Jack Luff, Experience Studies Actuary, Society of Actuaries
3:00 p.m. Workshop Sessions B:
B1 Life Insurance Tax Update
This workshop will focus mainly on life insurance company tax reserve issues with some discussion on policyholder tax issues, including the recently announced IRS revenue procedures for correction of failed contracts. Company tax issues discussed will include recent cases and rulings, developments relating to the dividends received deductions and separate accounts, reserve issues arising in IRS audits and appeals, tax reserve implications of recent NAIC activities including the movement towards principle based reserves and VACARVM, and other emerging developments.
– Bud Friedstat, Independent Consultant
– Vincent Tsang, Executive Director, Ernst & Young LLP
B2 Why Wellness? The Cost of Doing Nothing
Compelling reasons to engage in worksite wellness and primary prevention activities (including statistics around the incidence, cost, and preventability of chronic disease) Specific examples of programs that can be implemented in both worksite and community locations Experience with wellness and primary prevention programs of Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans of Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico
– Paul B. Handel, M.D., Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Health Care Service Corporation
(HCSC does business as the Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans of Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico)
B3 Implementing Liability Driven Investment strategies in the real world
With changes to the pension funding requirements and even more accounting changes likely to occur, pension plan sponsors are continuing to look at Liability Driven Investment (LDI) strategies to help manage the funded status volatility and/or enhance the risk/return profile of their plans. While LDI is conceptually simple, selecting from the array of different investment products, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, can be complicated. This session will discuss many of the different investment products used to implement LDI, including pros and cons and how they have performed through the recent financial crisis.
– Eric Friedman, Principal, Financial Strategy Group, Mercer
B4 Learn the Secrets of Power Reading
Power Reading will teach you how to read all your business material in half the time. This special free lesson will teach you: What your present reading skill is; Why you read the way you do; A unique new technique that will improve your reading on the spot; How to read as fast as you can think; How to take tests more efficiently.
– Allan Goldin, President & CEO, Kinetic Advanced Learning
B5 Beyond the Financial Crisis: Risk IS Opportunity
The current financial crisis has raised many questions: how do we think about risk management? What is the future role of pensions and insurance? Will my employer (and my job) still be there tomorrow? This session will focus on the challenges and opportunities that the financial crisis provides actuaries in the long term, and provides some thoughts on where we might be headed for insurance, annuities, pensions and health.
– Emily Kessler, Senior Fellow, Intellectual Capital, Society of Actuaries
B6 Financial reporting surprises of the financial crisis
Making Sense of Fair Value
The controversy over liability valuation and credit standing under fair value – the absurdity of enjoying a windfall on a credit downgrade – and the more recent uproar over marking to market liquidity-impaired assets have finally made clear that fair value is liquidation accounting ineptly imposed on going concerns. Constructing a balance sheet suitable for a going concern requires two steps: 1) identifying the liquidity penalty and restoring it to the asset values, and 2) identifying the credit penalty and restoring it to the liability values. After our exposition, the audience will be asked to provide concrete instances arising in their own practices.
DAC and Shadow DAC
The presenter will share various issues observed during the last two quarters of 2008, including the impact of the financial turmoil on DAC amortization, DAC write-off, negative DAC amortization, the practice of flooring the gross profits at zero, and shadow adjustments to DAC and other balances.
VA hedging programs and C3 Phase 2
– Mike Leung, Manager, Ernst & Young
– Phil Heckman, President, Heckman Actuarial Consultants LTD
– Peter Sun, Milliman
4:15 p.m. Workshop Sessions C:
C1 Value Investing
Some of the most successful institutional investors believe that value investing is a key strategy in achieving long-term investment success. Value investing is simple to understand but difficult to practice because it requires one to swim against the current. This session will describe how value investing differs from other investment approaches along with some of its fundamental concepts, such as 'Margin of Safety', 'Mr. Market', and the distinction between volatility and risk.
– Rob Bresticker, President, Brigadoon Bay Asset Management
C2 Principle Based Reserves, An Introduction
For the last few years the NAIC has made Principle-Based Reserves (PBR) a top priority. PBR represents a significant departure from current statutory reserve requirements. This session will cover the basic requirements of PBR as it stands today, as well as the key outstanding issues. This session is intended for people with little or no knowledge of PBR. – Don Maves, Manager, Actuarial Services, PolySystems
C3 Professionalism and the Actuary
This will be an interactive session led by a former member and past chair of the Actuarial Board for Counseling and Discipline. The session will include a brief summary of the professionalism roles within the U.S. actuarial profession, including the AAA, ASB, ABCD, SOA, CCA, CAS, ASPPA. This will be followed by an interactive discussion of professionalism hot topics such as
Protecting actuarial work from misuse
To report or not to report
Integrity and meeting attendance
Upholding the reputation of the profession
Issues in actuarial communication
– Bill Falk, Principal, Towers Perrin
C4 Healthcare trends
Medical and pharmacy trends are receiving more scrutiny than ever before. This presentation will describe the various considerations used in evaluating trend, examine one method of trend review, and discuss current trend observations.
– Frank Boeckmann, Actuary, Trend Analysis, Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC does business as the Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans of Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico)
C5 Older Age Underwriting and Mortality
As people are living longer, the market for life insurance at older issue ages is growing. Traditional underwriting techniques do not fully capture the risk involved at these ages. This session will cover some of the underwriting considerations and mortality expectations for this market place.
– Al Klein, Vice President, Actuarial Experience Studies at American General Life Companies
– Tom Edwalds, Assistant Vice President, Mortality Research, Munich American Reassurance Company
C6 The credit crisis and ERM
Panelists in this session will discuss the causes and consequences of the financial crisis and the lessons for enterprise risk managers, policy makers and regulators.
– Nian-Chih Yang, Independent Consultant
– Timur Gok, Northern Illinois University
5:15 Reception (cocktails)
All workshop attendees are invited to attend this reception for drinks and socializing.
5:45 Dinner
SOA Executive Director presents on Professionalism.
Dinner is optional. The event fee is $75 with dinner, $60 without dinner
(Retirees, unemployed, and fulltime students get a reduced rate of $45 w/dinner, $30 without dinner)
Beef & Fish Combination: Pairing of a Petite Filet Mignon with a Port Wine Reduction
and California White Bass with a Ginger Buerre Blanc.
Vegetarian: Mediterranean Pasta with Fresh Baby Spinach, Diced Roma Tomatoes, Greek
Olives, Capers, Feta Cheese, Red Wine, Artichoke Hearts and Fresh Basil.
Kosher: The Kosher Gourmet, cRc
The bar remains open during dinner.
Make your dinner selection when you register online.