During its June 2022 meeting, the ASB voted to discontinue development of a proposed actuarial standard of practice (ASOP) on setting assumptions and disbanded the task force with appreciation for their development efforts.
The proposed standard was initially exposed in December 2016 with the goal of supplementing the guidance contained in practice-specific standards. After three exposure drafts, the proposed ASOP was examined against other ASOPs, and the ASB noted considerable duplication with the guidance in existing ASOPs. Most notably, since the initial exposure of the proposed setting assumptions ASOP, the ASB adopted ASOP No. 56, Modeling, in 2019 as a cross-practice standard containing substantial guidance on setting assumptions within models. In addition, the ASB noted that the guidance for assumptions in the practice-specific ASOPs was often more comprehensive than the guidance in the proposed ASOP. Lastly, after reviewing the history of comment letters received on all three exposure drafts, the ASB noted that the perceived need for a separate ASOP on setting assumptions remained mixed. Therefore, after much deliberation, the ASB concluded that the proposed ASOP would not add meaningful guidance to the existing body of standards and voted to discontinue development of the ASOP.
The ASB would like to thank the Assumptions Task Force, the ASB General Committee, and all the commentators who contributed to the proposed ASOP.
