Equity-Based Insurance Guarantees Conference 2017 | Society of Actuaries | 6 November 2017 | Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel , 202 E Pratt St, Baltimore, MD 21202, US

Equity-based guarantee products (variable annuities, fixed indexed annuities etc.) in North America currently exceed a trillion dollars in deposits. Policyholder investment knowledge continues to increase and has led to a record level of innovative and complex investment-related products—and it is not showing any signs of slowing down especially in the current low rate environment.

To remain competitive in this ever-changing investment product landscape, while retaining their market share, insurance companies need to stay abreast of evolving securities, accounting and tax regulations and policyholders’ risk appetites to develop new forms of guarantees. Given the intermingled risks underlying these products, many direct writers end up taking significant financial market-related risks without fully realizing the long-term impact of these risks on their balance sheet and shareholder value.

As a consequence, insurance companies have cut back on existing guarantees and offer managed volatility funds as part of their risk-management strategies. Additionally, the solutions implemented by underwriters to manage these risks range from taking no action to reinsuring (if they can find a reinsurer at a price they can afford), depending on a myriad of influencing factors, including:

• Size of business;
• Cost of required infrastructure/resources;
• Nature of guarantees; Compensation of senior management; and
• How shareholders, analysts, rating agencies and regulators correlate the soundness of a company to its risk-management practice.

These factors are fueled by:

• Lack of market volatility;
• Strong equity markets across the board.
• Low persistent interest rates.
• Volatility in credit spreads;
• Absence of complete reinsurance for these products;
• Reported losses by some of the market players for running either a poor or no hedging program at all; and
• Change of securities/trading/accounting regulation.

Who Should Attend

Risk managers, risk officers, corporate actuaries, appointed actuaries, investment actuaries, product development actuaries, pricing actuaries, valuation actuaries, software vendors, consultants, investment bankers, asset managers, hedge fund professionals, derivatives professionals, analysts and regulators.

CONFERENCE CHAIRMAN:

Dr. K. (Ravi) Ravindran
President, Annuity Systems Inc. (ASI)

MODERATOR AND PRESENTER:

Frank Zhang, FSA, CFA, FRM, MSCF, PRM
Vice President, Global Pricing and Valuation Oversight, Global Risk Management, MetLife

PRESENTERS:

Dariush Akhtari
Senior Director, Business Development Officer–Insurance Enterprise Risk Solution, Moody’s Analytics

Axel André
Chief Risk Officer, Institutional Markets and Individual and Group Retirement AIG Chie, Market Risk Officer, AIG

Simpa Baiye, FSA, MAAA, CFA
Director, Actuarial Services, PwC

Sebastian Lutz
Head of North America Equity Derivatives Institutional Sales, Commerzbank

Varun Mahajan
Head of Product Engineering (London), Equity Markets & Commodities, Commerzbank

Timothy Paris, FSA, MAAA
Chief Executive Officer, Ruark Consulting LLC

Peter M. Phillips
President & CEO, Pathwise Solutions Group at Aon Benfield

2017 Sponsors:

PLATINUM:
• Milliman

SILVER:
• Axis
• Barclays
• Commerzbank
• Munich RE
• Numerix
• Ruark