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07 December 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today released the results of its latest Pension Funding Index, which consists of 100 of the nation’s largest defined benefit pension plans. In November, these plans experienced a $7 billion decline in market value and a $1 billion increase in pension liabilities. While declining assets drove the deficit growth, the 4.53% discount rate—the lowest in the 11-year history of this study—continues to be the big story.
09 November 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., one of the premier global consulting and actuarial firms, today announced that its MedInsight solution has been adopted by more than 30 new clients in 2011. MedInsight is now used by more than 75 healthcare payers, employers, government entities, third-party administrators and community health coalitions.
04 November 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today released the results of its latest Pension Funding Index, which consists of 100 of the nation’s largest defined benefit pension plans. In October, these plans experienced a $44 billion investment gain and a $2 billion increase in pension liabilities. The $42 billion improvement in funded status comes in the wake of a $254 billion increase in the pension funding deficit in the third quarter of calendar year 2011, which was the second worst financial quarter on record. Only once in the history of this study has pension performance been worse; during the historic fourth quarter of calendar year 2008.
02 November 2011
London—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today announced the hiring of Elliot Varnell, FIA, to its London office. Mr. Varnell will focus on further developing Milliman’s leadership in economic capital and asset/liability modelling. He joins Milliman following 15 years in the industry. He was most recently a principal advisor at KPMG. Mr. Varnell worked previously at Barrie & Hibbert, Deloitte, and Bacon & Woodrow.
06 October 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today released the results of its latest Pension Funding Index, which consists of 100 of the nation’s largest defined benefit pension plans. In September, these plans experienced a $31 billion investment loss and a $93 billion increase in pension liabilities. The massive increase in the pension funding deficit closes out a rough quarter for these pensions. Since June 30, the funded status deficit has grown by $252 billion, making the third quarter of calendar year 2011 the second worst in the history of this study. The only previous quarter in which pensions have performed so poorly was the fourth quarter of calendar year 2008, which spanned the financial crisis.
29 September 2011
Washington, D.C.—A new study of the retirement plan choice in the public sector finds that defined benefit (DB) pensions are strongly preferred over 401(k)‐type defined contribution (DC) individual accounts. The study analyzes seven state retirement systems that offer a choice between DB and DC plans to find that the DB uptake rate ranges from 98 to 75 percent. The percentage of new employees choosing DC plans ranges from 2 to 25 percent for the plans studied.
19 September 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today announced the next phase in its strategic alliance with EagleEye Analytics, an insurance solutions company that provides predictive analytics to the insurance industry. The firms’ new solution focuses on providing property & casualty and life insurers with information that can fuel increased profitability.
13 September 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today released the results of its latest Pension Funding Index, which consists of 100 of the nation’s largest defined benefit pension plans. In August, these plans experienced a $29 billion investment loss and a $33 billion increase in pension liabilities. The August increase in the pension funded deficit comes on the heels of an even larger increase in July. The combined $128 billion growth in the deficit between June 30 and August 31 is the largest two-month increase since a $134 billion increase in May and June of 2010.
12 September 2011
Paris—Milliman, Inc., one of the premier global consulting and actuarial firms, today announced that it has launched its Dynamic ALM solution built on its leading financial modelling solution, MG-ALFA®. The solution is based on research and client projects which have shown that a company’s Solvency II model can be used as an active asset liability management tool to support the optimisation of the asset allocation strategy, thereby linking solvency calculations with actual risk management.
08 September 2011
London—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today announced that its risk adjustment product, Milliman Advanced Risk Adjusters (MARA), will be embedded in the analytic product offered by GPC Solutions Limited (GPC), which serves Clinical Commissioning Groups.
09 August 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today released the results of its latest Pension Funding Index, which consists of 100 of the nation's largest defined benefit pension plans. In July, these plans experienced a $6 billion investment loss and a $62 billion increase in pension liabilities. The resulting $68 billion increase in the pension funded status deficit is the largest decline so far in 2011.
09 August 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today released results from its 2011 survey of the U.S. individual disability income (IDI) market. Fifteen insurance companies, representing 90%-95% of the traditional IDI new business issued today, were asked about the business issued between 2002 and 2010, the distribution of sales among key marketing segments, current underwriting requirements, product offerings, favorable and unfavorable trends, and opportunities and obstacles in the current IDI market. Milliman has published this annual survey since 2007.
20 July 2011
Seattle—Milliman is proud to present the first ever Global Family Takaful Report, launched at the International Takaful Summit in London in July 2011. This is the first report of its kind, providing a unique in-depth analysis of family Takaful. The report focuses on the characteristics inherent within the family Takaful market.
14 July 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today identified a series of considerations for states, health plans, and employers as they look toward the 2014 state exchange implementation deadline set forward in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and reiterated in regulations issued by Health & Human Services on July 11.
13 July 2011
Seattle—Milliman has completed one of the largest and most comprehensive life insurance mortality and lapse studies ever undertaken. The study is called MIMSA (Milliman Industry Mortality Study and Analysis) and covers the United States individual life insurance business of 29 companies. MIMSA contains $27.8 trillion of exposure for mortality and 1.6 million deaths over study years 2000-2009. It also contains $26.8 trillion of exposure for lapse and 8.1 million lapses.
12 July 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, has been named recipient of the 2011 Microsoft Technical and High Performance Computing Innovation Partner of the Year Award. The company was honored among a global field of top Microsoft partners for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions using Milliman's MG-ALFA® actuarial projection system and the Microsoft platform.
07 July 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today released the results of its latest Pension Funding Index, which consists of 100 of the nation's largest defined benefit pension plans. In June, these plans experienced a $10 billion investment loss but still saw an overall improvement in funded status due to a $35 billion liability reduction. This resulted in a $25 billion improvement in the funded status deficit, bringing it to $186 billion.
07 June 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today released the results of its latest Pension Funding Index, which consists of 100 of the nation's largest defined benefit pension plans. In May, these plans experienced flat asset performance and a $26 billion liability increase due to a drop in interest rates. This resulted in a $26 billion increase to the funded status deficit, bringing it to $210 billion.
11 May 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today released the results of the 2011 Milliman Medical Index, which measures the total cost of healthcare for a typical family of four covered by a preferred provider organization (PPO). The 2011 MMI cost is $19,393, an increase of 7.3% over 2010, which is the lowest annual rate of increase in more than a decade. Yet even though the rate of increase is the lowest in recent memory, the increase in total dollars—$1,319 in 2011—is the highest in the history of this study.
10 May 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today released the results of its latest Pension Funding Index, which consists of 100 of the nation's largest defined benefit pension plans. In April, these plans saw pension liabilities increase by $31 billion due to a drop in interest rates, overshadowing a $19 billion increase in assets. This resulted in a $12 billion increase to the funded status deficit, bringing it to $184 billion.
12 April 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today announced that it will provide its risk adjustment software, Milliman Advanced Risk Adjusters (MARA), to states implementing a health insurance exchange.
11 April 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today released the results of its latest Pension Funding Index, which consists of 100 of the nation's largest defined benefit pension plans. In March, these plans experienced no asset growth but did see liabilities decrease by $16 billion based on an increase in the discount rate.
29 March 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today released the results of its annual Pension Funding Study, which consists of 100 of the nation’s largest defined benefit pension plans. In 2011, these plans experienced asset returns of 12.8% (a $115 billion improvement) that were offset by a liability increase of 7.7% (a $103 billion increase) based on a decrease in the discount rate. The decline in discount rates fueled record levels of pension expense for these plan sponsors. Collectively, these pensions went into the year expecting a $30 billion charge to earnings, with the final number almost doubling that estimate, at $59.4 billion.
22 March 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today announced completion of a project with the Allstate Corporation (Allstate). Allstate participated in the International Accounting Standards Board's ("IASB") field testing project related to the exposure draft entitled "Insurance Contracts." The field testing exercise required a number of complex and statistical calculations. Allstate engaged Milliman to perform calculations outlined in the accounting standard exposure draft using Milliman's Reserve Variability Model. Milliman helped Allstate prepare data for input into the system, analyze output from the various field test model runs, and understand how the potential changes might affect Allstate's financials.
09 March 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today released the latest update to the Milliman 100 Pension Funding Index, which consists of 100 of the nation's largest defined benefit pension plans. In February, these plans experienced asset increases of $15 billion and liability increases of $21 billion, resulting in a $6 billion decrease in pension funded status for the month. The decline follows two consecutive months of improvement and is the exception to a recent upward trend in pension funding that has shrunk the pension funded deficit to $255 billion since the funded status deficit hit an all-time high of $460 billion in August. For the last 12 months, despite a 13% return on assets, these pensions experienced a $1 billion decline in funded status.
09 February 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today released the latest update to the Milliman 100 Pension Funding Index, which consists of 100 of the nation’s largest defined benefit pension plans. In January, these plans experienced asset increases of $6 billion and liability decreases of $35 billion, resulting in a $41 billion increase in pension funded status for the month and the second consecutive month of positive performance. For the last 12 months, these pensions experienced a $15 billion improvement in funded status, which compares favorably to the performance over the course of calendar year 2010, when these pensions saw the funded status deficit increase by $49 billion.
11 January 2011
Seattle—Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today released the latest update to the Milliman 100 Pension Funding Index, which consists of 100 of the nation’s largest defined benefit pension plans. In December, these plans experienced asset increases of $24 billion and liability decreases of $20 billion, resulting in a $44 billion increase in pension funded status for the month. For the year, these pensions experienced asset increases of $50 billion but a liability increase of $99 billion, increasing the pension funded status deficit by $49 billion.