Index Page - Research Reports

Managing Guarantee Risk on Variable Annuities: An Introduction
Are you comfortable with your understanding of the types of modeling and other technical processes that support today’s variable annuity (VA) guarantee business? The variable annuity market has evolved rapidly over the past decade, and techniques insurers use to manage their VA risks have grown increasingly complex. Variable annuity guarantees give customers the right to transfer part of the risk of poor investment performance to the insurer, contingent on certain behavior or death. This report is designed to review and explain important technical developments in VA management to decision-makers outside of actuarial and investment departments. These developments pertain to stochastic modeling, financial engineering, and hedging.

Outsourcing and Offshoring: Challenges and Opportunities for Insurance Companies
Vast disparities in global wages create an opportunity for labor arbitrage, the transfer of work from a high-wage to a low-wage country. Firms taking advantage of this opportunity have triggered a cycle of rapidly rising levels of offshoring. This report describes the scope of these practices, presents a process for selecting providers, examines why the two practices are increasing, and provides evidence of the impact of offshoring on jobs. The focus of the report is on information technology (IT) outsourcing and offshoring to IT services companies in the United States and India (156 pages, 2004).

Management Challenges Involving the Separate Account Business
Separate accounts in the life insurance industry involve products such as variable annuities and retirement savings plans, where most of the investment results are passed through to the customer. The insurers managing these products must rely on small profit margins generated by fee-based expense charges, small investment spreads, and underwriting profits. This report describes the characteristics of the marketplace for separate account products, factors affecting demand, business risks, history, federal regulations, and financial management issues involving life insurance separate accounts (51 pages, 2004).

The Changing Reinsurance Industry

The global reinsurance industry has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past few years, expanding its services beyond accepting risks that primary insurers want to transfer. Reinsurers are increasingly hedging a variety of financial risks such as financial guarantees for municipal bond insurers and currency convertibility guarantees for organizations conducting business in foreign countries. This report covers topics such as the economic structure of the industry, challenges involved in selecting reinsurers, and factors contributing to a positive long-term outlook for the reinsurance industry (103 pages, 2004).

The New World of Risk

Life and health insurers are underwriting man-made catastrophic risks involving deaths and disabilities resulting from terrorists making use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. This report describes these risk exposures in detail and the efforts being made by the US government and other institutions to control them. The report also reviews catastrophic loss exposures involving technological networks, a continually expanding universe of legal liability and global risks that affect all insurance companies and US businesses (120 pages, 2004).

Insurer Transparency in an Era of Aggressive Financial Disclosure Regulation

With the globalization of financial markets and increased speed of financial transactions, regulators are pursuing a new disclosure-based financial regulatory model that requires integrated international approaches to accounting standards, securities regulation, and financial institution regulation. This report describes the origins of the model and the challenges it poses to insurers (119 pages, 2004).

Asset-Liability Management Challenges Facing the Life Insurance Industry

Reviews the components of Asset-Liability Management (ALM) that need to be managed and relevant issues for life insurers. Special attention is paid to the proper management of pricing, investment, and contractual design issues in ALM (116 pages, 2003).

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The Financial Outlook for the Life Insurance Industry

Describes the factors driving the profitability of life insurance companies and assesses the impact those factors have on the current and short-term financial performance of the industry (118 pages, 2003).

Global Demographic Projections and the Life Insurance Industry: A Long-Term View

Describes the age structures, population sizes, and wealth of developed and developing countries around the world and their effect on the potential market for insurance products and services (128 pages, 2003).

International Issues in the Financial Services Industry

Examines the increasing globalization of the financial services sector as well as the many economic, demographic, regulatory, cultural, and logistical issues that companies must consider to develop and sustain effective international operations (146 pages, 2003).

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Fair Value Reporting for Life Insurers

Examines fair value reporting in the context of the life insurance industry, explores alternative financial reporting systems, and examines the arguments for and against them (131 pages, 2002).

Data Privacy, IT Security, and Disaster Recovery in the Financial Services Industry

Describes the issues surrounding IT security, data privacy and disaster recovery in the life insurance and financial services industry and offers various managerial and technological solutions for them (55 pages, 2002).

Evolving Technologies and Business Models in Financial Services

Describes important technological developments that have the power to reshape the operations of life insurance and financial services companies and the hurdles companies face as they attempt to leverage those developments (138 pages, 2002).

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Planning and Managing Insurer Merger Integration
Describes the challenges of merger integration and practical steps companies can take to meet those challenges. Offers exceptionally useful merger integration documents and industry case studies. Among the insurers discussed in detail are GE Capital, Aegon-Transamerica, ING-ReliaStar, Hartford-Omni Insurance, Liberty Life, UNUMProvident, and Citigroup (183 pages, 2002).

One to One in Retail Financial Services: New Strategies for Creating Value Through Customer Relationships (published by LOMA and Peppers and Rogers Group)
Details how banks, brokerage firms, and insurance companies can foster long-term profitable customer relationships. This special report is available for $695 (195 pages, 2002).

Enterprise Risk Management in the Life Insurance Industry
Examines every aspect of the ERM challenge, describing current risk exposures in the life industry as well as the elements of an effective risk management program (135 pages, 2001).

Strategic Issues Facing Life Insurers
Examines today's complex competitive landscape and the factors that life insurers must address in their strategic planning process, including new sources of competition, the changing requirements of financial services customers, evolving organizational designs and uses of technology to meet marketplace needs, human resources management practices in successful organizations, and effective financial management strategies (118 pages, 2001).

Viatical and Life Settlements: The Challenge Facing the Life Insurance Industry
The viatical settlement industry, which once targeted only the terminally and chronically ill, is shifting its focus to the elderly and the affluent, thereby expanding dramatically. Although a few insurance companies are benefiting from this expansion, the life insurance industry as a whole is facing some grave challenges as a result of it. This report examines the viatical and life settlement industry and its impact on the life insurance industry (185 pages, 2000).

Planning and Managing E-Commerce in the Life Insurance Industry
To gain competitive advantage in a rapidly evolving financial services industry, many life insurance companies have begun to engage in electronic commerce. This report addresses every aspect of the e-commerce challenge, including Web site development, customer relationship management, e-commerce business processing models, management issues in e-commerce, and future developments in e-commerce. It also includes numerous business examples from and case studies of life insurance companies engaged in e-commerce (127 pages, 2000).

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Managing Technology in the Life Insurance Industry
This report examines the many ways IT has transformed traditional financial services companies -- life insurers, in particular. It describes the synergy between business goals and enabling technologies that characterizes successful financial services companies, addressing such vital business concepts as strategic intent, organizational learning, and next, versus best, practices (130 pages, 1999).

Archive: Other reports available only in hard copy

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