Description: Unique Data Analysis Techniques to help plans find that 1% edge in opportunity and value. The discussion will vary from a conversation on members who are at high catastrophic risk to provider networks and referral patterns. The goal of the session will be to help show ways plans can create savings through outside-the-box techniques.

Description: In this session, actuaries and data scientists will describe how the Cleveland Clinic has utilized large language models to support caregivers with difficult end of life conversations with patients and their loved ones. While artificial intelligence is often prefaced with words of caution, it can also be harnessed for good.

Description: Model Risk Management at insurers has been an established practice for well over ten years now. Until recently, a primary focus of model governance was on actuarial models. The Gen AI evolution we’ve experienced in the last two years, has shone a spotlight on “all things AI”. Along with the increased capabilities AI brings, there is increased concern for the proper use of these models, protection of IP, safeguarding of PII, and overall security. This session will bring together a diverse panel to discuss how we can adapt our established practices for these new models to minimize the risks that come with Gen AI and help our organizations optimize the benefits of AI.

Description: How might retirement income strategies be designed and their suitability assessed when retirees may differ substantially in their objectives, preferences and personal circumstances? Gain a wide-ranging overview of the key elements involved in formulating retirement strategies, drawing on the report, Primer on Retirement Income Strategy Design and Evaluation, which was recently released by the Society of Actuaries (SOA) Research Institute's Aging and Retirement Strategic Research Program. Hear about three types of income objectives-income floor, income target and income optimization-and how they imply different retirement strategies along with a different set of metrics to evaluate outcomes. We will also touch on key member attributes to account for: The nature of income risk, approaches to investing and drawing down on available assets to generate income, and how stochastic modeling can support the analysis. You will find something of interest in this session, regardless of prior familiarity with strategies for retirement.

Description: Life and annuity markets around the world have seen increasingly complex investment-combined products, including universal life, fixed indexed annuities, variable annuities with a wide variety of guaranteed benefits and indexed variable annuities. Insurance companies are facing unprecedented exposure to financial risks in addition to traditional mortality and longevity risks. The risk assessment and modeling for such complex designs by conventional methods often focus heavily on their market competitiveness and profitability. However, there seems to be a lack of quantifiable and systematic approaches to assess investment risks associated with investment combined products. The objective of the proposed work is to develop a framework for quantifying and analyzing various forms of contractual designs and showcase different techniques to assess the trade-off between competitive contractual designs and their practical implications regarding the difficulty of risk management.

Description: In this article we examine the benefits and drawbacks of using a global surrogate of a black-box model. Are surrogates a comfortable middle ground that provide insurers high predictive power as well as model explainability?

Description: Python has become the fastest-growing major programming language in the world. It has surged in popularity over the last decade, following the development of its industry-leading capabilities in data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and it is now one of the most globally popular and widely used languages. In this article, I discuss some of the reasons for its popularity and explain why many actuaries and insurers have started using Python.

Description: The Society of Actuaries (SOA), in a joint project with the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) and the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA), are creating research projects and education materials on Modeling and Management of Longevity Risk.