Until very recently, multinationals listed in the US but not resident in the US were required to show a reconciliaton of their local GAAP financial statements to the US GAAP equivalent. Many of these large companies (based in Europe and the Far East) incurred high costs in time, energy and hard cash in preparing US…
Apparently the results for QIS3 are now available. QIS3 (“Quiz 3”) is the third Quantitative Impact Study along the path to rolling out Sovlency II for insurance companies between 2010 and 2012. It provides further light on what capital requirements will actually be when Sovlency II comes into effect. Perhaps a warning is required for…
Iafrica has a story about a court battle against different state retirement ages. Can’t imagine this will go far in the short-term, but might be the beginning of a serious relook at normal retirement age, for men and women, and in in light of trends of extended retirement periods through “mortality improvements”. Mortality improvement is the lowering of mortality over time as a result of several causes, including better medical care, awareness of the dangers of smoking etc. http://business.iafrica.com/news/540145.htm A two-day hearing of a case brought by a group of men challenging the unequal provision of the state old age pension to men at 65 and to women at 60 will begin on Tuesday.
Is your organisation one black swan away from disaster? Are you taking hidden risks in the quest for success, and using hope as your only risk management tool? Nassim Taleb’s books should be required reading for life Nassim Taleb is one of my new favourite authors. I’m actually a little slow on the uptake here…
Most people involved with insurance recognise that more premium is better (ceteris paribus of course). This is usually true (and occasionally not) but while some of the reasons are obvious, there are a variety of more subtle factors to take into account. This post will cover many of these factors, and point out a few…
Apparently, it was Benjamin Franklin who said “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Without going into a detailed analysis of whether death is certain, and whether there are tax-haven countries with sufficiently low taxes to stretch the point a little, I have some comments to make on…
Entrepreneurs are hailed as saviours of modern society. The current international paradigm (and one which is growing ever stronger in South Africa) is biased towards the idea that career success requires one to create something new and build up something from scratch – head out on one’s own and conquer the earth. OK, this doesn’t…
Not quite rockstar material yet, but my fame is spreading, at least in The Actuary, the magazine of the UK’s actuarial profession. Check out the mention of my involvemet in the launch of the South African version of the Actuarial Modelling course (CA2) in Pretoria during July. Overall, it went pretty smoothly – results are…
