As the US population ages and private pensions dwindle, insurance retirement products like annuities have become popular. One annuity product in particular – Fixed Indexed Annuities (FIA) – has seen strong sales growth in recent years, just as another once-popular product (Variable Annuities, or VAs) has struggled somewhat.

An important driver behind the upsurge in FIA sales is benefit riders, and one of the most popular riders is the Guaranteed Living Withdrawals Benefit (GLWB) rider. Unlike VA GLWBs, FIA GLWBs are sometimes unhedged by insurers due to accounting standards – but the economic risk remains. How can practitioners create a liability model to manage risk while maintaining profits? How do modeling choices impact prices and risk metrics?

On Wednesday, September 30th featured speaker Samuel Stuckal of CEB TowerGroup joined Dr. Pawel Konieczny and Jae Jung of Numerix to discuss recent FIA market trends and the drivers behind the trends, as well as considerations for insurers as they attempt to model and manage the risk of new FIA product designs.

In the first part of the webinar, Samuel Stuckal of CEB TowerGroup covered:

  • FIA demand drivers
  • Financial challenges to consumers and financial service firms
  • The FIA marketplace, features and financial planning benefits
     

In part two of the webinar, Dr. Pawel Koniecnzy and Jae Jung of Numerix discussed:

  • Brief overview of FIA GLWBs and differences from VA GLWBs
  • Dynamic cap setting vs static caps for point-to-point FIAs
  • Importance of market model choice for FIAs
     
To view the on-demand webinar, just register on the right side of this page.

 
Featured Speakers:

Samuel Stuckal, Senior Executive Advisor, Insurance, CEB TowerGroup
Sam Stuckal is a Senior Executive Advisor for CEB TowerGroup Insurance, providing strategic guidance to insurers on their use of technology. He focuses on Life and Annuity insurance, but his work experience and interests run across all lines of business.
Mr. Stuckal researches and consults on how advanced technology can best support the sales, distribution and servicing of insurance. Technologies include actuarial and risk management systems, analytics, CRM, core policy administration, distribution management and sales support tools like illustrations and calculators. His research at CEB also includes the future of insurance, transformational opportunities, cloud deployments, social media and competitive differentiation with technology.

Mr. Stuckal has almost 25 years of insurance industry experience in IT leadership, financial management, operations, procurement, and sourcing. He joined CEB from The Hartford where he managed transformational technology projects including enterprise-wide cloud deployments, line of business sourcing partnerships and virtualization infrastructure projects. Earlier in his career, Mr. Stuckal provided application architecture and systems consulting for several modernization projects in banking and insurance administration. His technology leadership experience also includes implementing risk hedging and reinsurance solutions, designing reporting systems, advising on mergers and acquisition technology decisions and managing application development teams on shore and off shore using agile methods.

Mr. Stuckal received a Bachelor of Arts in economics and communications from the University of Michigan and a Master’s in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from the University of Connecticut. Currently he volunteers as Treasurer of a non-profit residential association.

Pawel Konieczny, PhD, Vice President, Insurance Solutions, Client Solutions Group, Numerix
Dr. Konieczny is Vice President in the Client Solutions Group at Numerix and is responsible for the Insurance line of products: Numerix Leading Hedge and Numerix Economic Scenario Generator. Prior to joining Numerix he was the Head of the Quantitative Modeling group at Transamerica Capital Management in the Variable Annuities line of business.

Dr. Konieczny has international publications in theoretical Fluid Mechanics and before joining the finance industry he carried out scientific research at Carnegie Mellon University, the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications at the University of Minnesota, and the University of Iowa. He holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics as well as an MSc in Mathematics and an MSc in Computer Science from the University of Warsaw.

Jae Jung, FSA, Actuary, Client Solutions Group, Numerix
Jae Jung is an Actuary in the Client Solutions Group at Numerix and provides actuarial solutions to clients focusing on hedge strategy design and implementation, liability modeling, and risk-neutral valuation. Prior to joining Numerix, Mr. Jung served as an Associate Actuary for Prudential creating variable annuities valuation and financial planning models. He began his career at Phoenix Companies where he performed dynamic hedging and attribution for their VA block.

Mr. Jung is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and received a BA in Economics and a BSE in Electrical Engineering from Dartmouth College.

Moderator: Jim Jockle, Chief Marketing Officer
Mr. Jockle leads the company's global marketing efforts, spanning a diverse set of solutions and audiences. He oversees integrated marketing communications to customers in the largest global financial markets and to the Numerix partner network through the company's branding, electronic marketing, research, events, public relations, advertising and relationship marketing.

Prior to joining Numerix, he served as Managing Director of Global Marketing and Communications for Fitch Ratings. During his tenure at Fitch, Mr. Jockle built the firm’s public relations program, oversaw investor relations and led marketing and communications plans for several acquisitions. He also oversaw the brand development of a new company dedicated to the enhancement of credit derivative and structured-credit ratings, products and services. Prior to Fitch, Mr. Jockle was a member of the communications team at Moody's Investors Service.

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