Washington § 48.74.110 - Reserves — Principle-based valuation.

(1) A company must establish reserves, consistent with the commissioner's superseding authority to establish reserves pursuant to RCW 48.74.100(7), using a principle-based valuation that meets the following conditions for policies or contracts as specified in the valuation manual:

(a) Quantify the benefits and guarantees, and the funding, associated with the contracts and their risks at a level of conservatism that reflects conditions that include unfavorable events that have a reasonable probability of occurring during the lifetime of the contracts. For policies or contracts with significant tail risk, valuations must reflect conditions appropriately adverse to quantify the tail risk.

(b) Incorporate assumptions, risk analysis methods, and financial models and management techniques that are consistent with, but not necessarily identical to, those utilized within the company's overall risk assessment process, while recognizing potential differences in financial reporting structures and any prescribed assumptions or methods.

(c) Incorporate assumptions that are derived in one of the following manners:

(i) The assumption is prescribed in the valuation manual.

(ii) For assumptions that are not prescribed, the assumptions must:

(A) Be established utilizing the company's available experience, to the extent it is relevant and statistically credible; or

(B) To the extent that company data is not available, relevant, or statistically credible, be established utilizing other relevant, statistically credible experience.

(d) Provide margins for uncertainty including adverse deviation and estimation error, such that the greater the uncertainty the larger the margin and resulting reserve.

(2) A company using a principle-based valuation for one or more policies or contracts subject to this section as specified in the valuation manual must:

(a) Establish procedures for corporate governance and oversight of the actuarial valuation function consistent with those described in the valuation manual.

(b) Provide to the commissioner and the board of directors an annual certification of the effectiveness of the internal controls with respect to the principle-based valuation. These controls must be designed to assure that all material risks inherent in the liabilities and associated assets subject to such valuation are included in the valuation, and that valuations are made in accordance with the valuation manual. The certification must be based on the controls in place as of the end of the preceding calendar year.

(c) Develop, and file with the commissioner upon request, a principle-based valuation report that complies with standards prescribed in the valuation manual.

(3) A principle-based valuation may include a prescribed formulaic reserve component.

Effective date—2016 c 142: See note following RCW 48.74.010.