Free CAS Exam 6-U.S. (Regulation and Financial Reporting) Lessons

All 24 CAS Exam 6-U.S. (Regulation and Financial Reporting) lessons are free to read, each with worked examples. Just a free account, no card.

United States Laws and Regulations

• Explain how U.S. insurance regulation and governance reached their current form, including the landmark federal laws and Supreme Court decisions, antitrust treatment, rate regulation, rating agencies, and what qualifies as the business of insurance. (9 min)
• Explain what the National Association of Insurance Commissioners does and how it fits into the state-based regulatory system. (8 min)
• Compare how regulators keep watch over insurer solvency, from risk-based capital and financial examinations to receivership and the NAIC's IRIS and ORSA tests. (10 min)
• Summarize how regulation reaches the specialty markets, including surplus lines carriers, risk retention groups, risk purchasing groups, captives, and non-admitted companies. (10 min)
• Describe how regulators are responding to newer rating practices such as price optimization and predictive models. (10 min)
• Analyze where tort litigation is heading, from reform efforts to class actions, and the different kinds of costs litigation creates. (7 min)
• Explain how latent liabilities such as mass torts work their way onto a property and casualty insurer's balance sheet and results. (8 min)

Government Programs

• Explain why government and industry insurance programs exist and what each major U.S. program is meant to accomplish. (11 min)
• Walk through how these programs operate and transfer risk alongside the voluntary private market: funding sources, exposure assignment, claim handling, and the line between subsidy and insurance. (11 min)
• Judge whether a government or industry program is working, weighing solvency, efficiency, stability, and long-run viability against its purpose. (11 min)

Financial Reporting, Taxation, and Professional Responsibilities of the Actuary

• Read, build, and calculate from the primary financial statements (balance sheet, income statement, cash flows, capital and surplus, notes) to size up an insurer's financial health. (15 min)
• Work through the annual statement schedules and exhibits (Underwriting and Investment Exhibit, Schedule F, Schedule P, Statutory Page 14, 5-Year Historical Data), the Insurance Expense Exhibit, and the Statement of Actuarial Opinion, carrying out the calculations they support and using them to assess an insurer's condition. (16 min)
• Calculate risk-based capital and interpret what the result says about an insurer's solvency position. (19 min)
• Calculate the IRIS ratios and interpret what unusual values are signaling. (18 min)
• Quantify how statutory accounting treatment differs from GAAP, IFRS, and Solvency II. (17 min)
• Explain what the standards of practice, regulators, and insurance law require of an actuary whose work feeds financial reporting. (17 min)
• Walk through the appointed actuary's obligations as they play out across the Statement of Actuarial Opinion, the Actuarial Opinion Summary, and the actuarial report. (20 min)
• Lay out what an SAO and AOS must contain and explain each piece: the actuary's conclusion on reserve adequacy, the disclosures the opinion must carry, the risk factors specific to the company, and who is entitled to rely on each document. (21 min)
• Compute the tax items specific to a property and casualty insurer, especially loss reserve discounting, and evaluate what they mean for the company. (15 min)

Reinsurance Accounting Principles

• Use reinsurance accounting terminology correctly and separate a contract's insurance component from its financing component. (8 min)
• Run a risk transfer test to decide between reinsurance accounting and deposit accounting, and trace the consequences through the financial statements. (8 min)
• Explain how commutations are accounted for and taxed, and why the parties agree to them. (7 min)
• Judge whether a reinsurance strategy is doing its job by tracing its effect through the financial statements and the key metrics built from them. (7 min)
• Judge an insurer's reinsurance exposure and overall condition from what Schedule F reveals. (9 min)