Mergers and acquisitions: Assessing enterprise risks

Video transcript

Steven Schreiber: For the M&A work that we do, the focus is on analyzing insurance companies and trying to evaluate insurance companies so the unique focus the actuary brings is our understanding of the long-term nature of life insurance liabilities. It allows us to evaluate the products and project these long-term liabilities, which is critical in assessing values of companies as part of the M&A process.

Enterprise risk management, or ERM, is becoming more and more important for all insurance companies, and we're seeing different levels of ERM at different companies, so it's important as part of the M&A process to evaluate each company's ERM processes, whether they're advanced and whether that's protecting them against various risks, or whether there are risks that yet have not been protected. For example, as part of looking at the ERM process, you want to look to see how a company has hedged its risks. If a company has a variable annuity business with guaranteed benefits, there are different types of hedging that various companies have done that can significantly reduce the risk, or if not properly hedged, can significantly increase risks, and that needs to be considered as part of the M&A process.