Description: The COVID-19 pandemic has not simply changed the way we live. It has caused most of us—whether we want to or not—to reassess the way we think and feel about our world. Most in the general public have been looking to political and medical leaders to better understand the implications to health and wealth. Likewise, we as actuaries look to business leaders and key volunteers for their insights into the impact on our profession. We recently conducted a series of interviews with such leaders in the Canadian actuarial profession. This article addresses their insights into the evolving set of skills we need in this rapidly changing world.

Description: During the2019 InsureTech Connect conference in Las Vegas, the Society of Actuaries (SOA) and Plug and Play today announced the two organizations are nearing an agreement on professional development offerings and learning opportunities. The SOA and Plug and Play plan to work together on a variety of InsurTech-focused events and projects for the SOA membership, insurance industry and technology sector.

Description: The multi-risk scenario generator is an output of the Smaller Insurance Company Section’s sponsored Principle- Based Reserves Simplified Methods study performed by Mark Birdsall, Steve Strommen, and Brian Hartman. The scenario generator can be used for all material assumptions in an actuary’s cash flow projection software.

Description: Actuarial Perspectives on COVID-19: June 10 Twitter Chat with the Society of Actuaries

Description: New digital data known as alternative data is everywhere. Our industry has seen the financial, and hi-tech industries leverage new digital data to expand their key offerings and core services. From the lens of the global life and health industry, new digital data is still searching to be further understood. Risk assessment is a current focus area for using alternative data. A key question is even though risk assessment has always been data-driven, can it now move to the next level with the arrival of this alternative data. Can we use alternative data to make the risk assessment process quicker, cheaper, or faster thereby driving more sales and better conversion rates. It is an exciting time! With the increased adoption of health and well-being apps, data such as physical activity, nutrition, sleep, and mental wellness is now readily available. Expanded data such as digital biomarkers, IoT data, electronic health records and many more can also be accessed. However, how to effectively implement alternative data remains a challenge across the industry. We firmly believe it is, and will continue to be, imperative to take a structured approach to alternative data through a set of key considerations and a framework of principles.

Description: Article presents the basic terminology and theory of attribution theory, the theory explaining the causes that people attribute their successes and failures to. The article reviews i) typical attributions(e.g. effort, luck), ii) dimensions of attribution (controllability, stability), iii) useful and non-useful attributions, and iv) attribution retraining and v) other aspects of the theory (such as accompanying emotions)

Description: An introduction to the SOA Education Committee and summary of exam process.

Description: Article presents five steps to consider when thinking of selling your practice.

Description: Article discussing the SOA’s education system redesign.

Description: Presidential address about changes in the actuarial world.