There is currently no international standard for profit reporting in life insurance companies. The paper sets out the issues which an international standard for life companies will need to address, bearing in mind compatibility with existing International Accounting Standards, in particular IAS 32 Financial Instruments: disclosure and presentation, IAS Exposure Draft E62 (now IAS 39); Financial instruments; recognition and measurement and the discussion paper of March 1997 prepared by the Steering Committee on Financial Instruments entitled ‘Accounting for Financial Assets and Financial Liabilities’. The paper discusses possible approaches to the issues which arise and comments on each, ending with some final conclusions.

Closure of the fund to new business is a strategic option that is not usually considered as a part of the day-to-day running of a life assurance company. The paper explores certain circumstances in which it can be appropriate to consider it, though in the Working Party's view consideration of the closed fund alternative normally arises as a matter of course only in the context of demutualisations, and then as an indicator of the potential value of membership rights.

The topic is discussed in terms of legal, regulatory and professional aspects, and the profession is invited to consider providing more specific guidance for Appointed Actuaries whose companies are faced with demutualisation proposals. A number of practical aspects of operating a closed fund are outlined. The high-level financial considerations are illustrated by reference to a hypothetical case, and the perspectives of directors, independent and Appointed Actuaries and others are considered.

Several recent examples of demutualisations where the closed fund alternative was considered are summarised in appendices, and some examples of closed or virtually closed funds are cited.

This paper takes an overview of the potential roles and responsibilities of pension scheme actuaries in the United Kingdom in relation to defined contribution (DC) schemes.

First it summarises briefly the background to UK retirement provision and in particular the move to DC arrangements. The paper then compares and contrasts the pension scheme actuary's current role in both defined benefit (DB) and DC schemes. This is then developed to consider what further statutory roles there may be for actuaries in DC schemes.

The paper challenges the profession to champion the public interest by seeking clarity and simplification, and finally considers the impact on actuarial employment.

This paper extends and develops the strategy investment approach first described in a paper to the 1997 Investment Conference of the Faculty and Institute of Actuaries. Selected constituents of the FTSE-100 Index are partitioned each month into groups of ten in terms of relative attractiveness as estimated by a utility function involving expected earnings growth over the following twelve months and prospective price-earnings ratio. The relative performances of these monthly cohorts of selections are then calculated at monthly intervals using principles similar to those used in mortality rate investigations. The mean values and the underlying variability of these relative performances suggest that the strategy investment approach provides a very powerful and consistent framework for successful equity share selection. Finally, the outline of a fundamental preferences model for performance relative to an equity market index is put forward as a possible replacement for the Capital Asset Pricing Model as the basic theoretical framework for equity share returns.