2:00 p.m. Sessions

 Leaders

1.  Managing the Rising Costs of Prescription Drugs  Prescription drug costs are the fastest growing segment of healthcare in the United States.  Without efficient pharmacy management strategies, the provision of a covered pharmacy benefit will be cost prohibitive in the next five years.  A review of the pharmacy program through identification of the particular cost drivers, assessment of the current benefit design and pharmacy benefit management are the first steps to creating solutions that are client specific.  Strategies such as pharmacy benefit management vendor optimization, physician and member education, benefit design changes to incent appropriate drug utilization, drug utilization review and targeted disease management programs may be implemented as next steps. (PD Credit Approved)

Stephen Hill, Director of Risk Mgmt, Cook County

Beth Mauer, PharmD., MBA, Senior Manager, Deloitte & Touche

2.  Web Savvy  This session will cover topics such as:

• Using search engines – which are best for your search?
• How to get more actuarial hits than misses when surfing
• What are cookies and how are they used?
• Internet Privacy – is this just a virtual dream?

Peggy Grillot, Web Manager, SOA & Debbie Jay, SOA

3.  XXX Update & Effect on Product Design  This session will cover the latest XXX state updates and review techniques that are currently being used to derive the X factor. There will also be a discussion of the product design features that have evolved due to XXX, including premiums and  guarantees. (  )

Greg Smith, Tillinghast;

Mary Bahna-Nolan, NACOLAH

4.  Introduction to Risk Management – The session will help participants to identify different types of risk before focusing on certain financial and operating risks specific to insurance and banking.  A framework will be developed for identifying exposures and techniques to limit them.  Specific topics addressed will include ALM, hedging strategies, reinsurance, product portfolio balancing and diversification, strategic alliances/joint ventures and contract design. 
(No PD Credit)

John Gould, CNA;
Narayan Shankar, CNA;
Qing Wang , CNA;
Jim Murtaugh, W. M. Mercer

5.  Update on the SOA’s Disability Valuation work  In 1998, LHATF asked the SOA to address individual and group disability reserving issues. An interim new table for individual business was proposed to LHATF in 1999 and work has begun on an experience study, reflecting current products, to potentially lead to a new permanent standard. On the group side, work on the validation of Experience Table 95a as the basis for a new permanent standard has been occurring. This session will report on these activities.

Jack Luff, SOA

6.  Life Company Corporate Structure General American’s Experience: Tom Hughes will discuss the changes in the structure of General American Life Insurance Company, covering issues related to mutual company structure, demutualization and the acquisition by Met Life.

E. Tom Hughes, Corporate Actuary & Treasurer, General American Life Ins. Co.

   3:00 p.m. Sessions

 Leaders

7.  Should US Employers Get Out of the Health Care business? 1n 1997, the Xerox corporation announced its intention to get out of the health care business within the next 7 years and continues to pursue that goal. This presentation will show why the health care industry is failing, why there’s nothing employers can do about it and why employers should seriously consider reducing or eliminating their role in the health care delivery process.

Gerry Smedinghoff, SYMTEC Inc. 

8.  Introduction to Risk Adjusters – This presentation will discuss the various risk adjusting methods. It will focus on the effects of risk adjusters on Medicare + Choice plans, but will also explore the applications of risk adjusters in the commercial market. (PD Credit Approved)

Julie Peper, Deloitte & Touche

9.  Refinements in Cash Flow Testing for Equity Indexed Annuities and UL – In addition to interest rate risk, equity indexed products are also subject to index volatility risk and replication risk. The combination of these risks creates additional challenges for actuaries to perform cash flow testing for equity indexed products. This session will focus on the practical aspects of modeling and performing cash flow testing as well as the correlation between interest rate and equity index changes. (  )

Peter Sun, M&R

10.  Fair Value Reporting  – A teaching session which will cover measures and objectives,  tools and methods, the potential impact on the industry and an update on FASB and the International Accounting Standards Committee. (  )

S. Michael McLaughlin, E&Y

11.  Regulatory Update for Stat and GAAP topics  Regulatory updates for Life and Annuity topics, relating to recent changes in Statutory  and GAAP issues. (  )

Richard Browne, KPMG;
Cherri Divin,  KPMG

12.  The Future of Actuarial Education and the Role of Academic Institutions This session will provide an opportunity to discuss the White Paper of the Joint CAS, CIA and SOA task force on academic relations. Possible initiatives include accreditation of academic actuarial science programs by the actuarial profession, the creation of actuarial educational material by academic faculty and the use of academic faculty to produce experience studies and tables.

Warren Luckner, SOA

   4:00 p.m. Sessions

 Leaders

13.  Long Term Care –  A basic teaching session on LTC pricing and product design. Topics covered will include development of pricing assumptions, sources of pricing data and current product design features and marketplace issues. (PD Credit Approved)

Loretta Jacobs, GE Financial Assurance

14.  Managed Care  Can it survive? Many market pressures are reversing the cost savings that managed care plans have achieved in the last decade. Managed Care plans are faced with “Patient Protection” legislation plus  providers are less willing to give deep discounts, causing some plans to experience large financial losses and others to withdraw from unprofitable markets altogether. This workshop will look at the recent market trends and discuss possible strategies that managed care plans can take to survive.  (  )

Donna Novak, Deloitte & Touche

15.  Evaluating Risk and Reward Tradeoffs in a Stochastic Environment  A framework will be developed for evaluating risk and reward for insurance products in a stochastic environment. This will include examples with alternative structures for assets and liabilities. (PD Credit Approved)

George Christopher, Ph.D. Milliman & Robertson

16.  Chicago Actuaries Advancing Student Achievement  The Actuarial Foundation is seeking interested Chicago Actuarial Association members to participate in the pilot of a new "MoneyMath Learning Series" with gifted students.  Session participants will be invited to shape the role of the actuary mentors and to make commitments to the pilot. Additionally, a report on discussions with the AON Foundation exploring the potential development of a mentor project in the inner city will be presented.

Joseph Abel, Ph.D.;
Ed Bales;
Dorothy Weber Ph.D.,
The Actuarial Foundation

17.  Who wants to be an expert in reinsurance? This session will focus on fundamentals of reinsurance regulations and effects of reinsurance on Statutory and GAAP financial reporting. The presentation format for the session will be similar to a popular TV game show.

Richard Browne, KPMG;
Vinaya Sharma, Allstate

18.  Update on Company and Policyholder Taxation  The update on company taxation covers recent changes in life, health and annuity federal taxation. Policyholder taxation issues focus on the new procedures for  “Un-MEC’ing a MEC”. (  )

Cherri Divin, KPMG Charles Friedstat, KPMG

19.  An Introduction to Web Site Programming for Actuarial Dummies  This workshop is for actuaries who wish to learn web site programming or for those who want to be able to improve communications with their web site developers. Come get a tour of the best resources to help you learn HTML, CGI programming, javascript, VB script and active server pages.

Charles Ritzke, FMSI