SOA’s international outreach

I’m a little slow noting this, but SOA President Bradley Smith blogged about the proposal to add a property-casualty track this week. He asserts fairly clearly that the move is pointed at international concerns: For us to meet the needs of our growing member and candidate base outside the U.S. and Canada, we must offer [...]

More on the SOA’s P/C track

With the Society of Actuaries planning to launch a casualty track, the CAS responds: The CAS Board affirms that it is the intention of the CAS to remain independent while at the same time cooperating with other actuarial organizations to meet challenges to the profession. There’s more at the link, noting that the CAS: is [...]

Does bootstrapping understate reserve variability?

Over at Guy Carpenter land, actuary Jessica Leong posits that the bootstrapping method of estimating reserve variability understates that variability. Bootstrapping, of course, is a method of using the company’s own data to drive a random sampling process; said process re-estimates the reserve. Sample enough times, keep track of the results, and you’ve got a [...]

Actuarial estimate on civil unions

Not often actuaries get involved in the gay marriage debate, but here’s a snip from an editorial in my old hometown’s newspaper: The more “explanations” we hear about a city committee’s decision to not provide dependent health insurance for employees in civil unions, the more ridiculous this situation becomes. First the Joint Labor/Management Health Care [...]

My greatest hits, 2011

IASB vs. FASB in one slide The most famous actuary Aon releases political risk map Cat (model) fighting Allstate’s actuarial astrology Solvency II: Internal models shrink capital needs, QIS5 results show Chart of the Day: Health care inflation Life tables at heart of fraud case Early assessment of Japan insurance/tsunami losses The future of actuaries [...]

Fortune favors an actuary

Via Claire Wilkinson at the III blog, a young actuary makes good. Really good: As I was sitting in the doctor’s waiting room the other day leafing through the latest issue of Fortune magazine, I couldn’t help but notice Fortune’s 40 under 40. This annual ranking highlights the hottest young stars in business across the [...]

Why health insurance subsidizes the elderly

Over at the Speaking of Actuaries blog, SOA President Brad Miller puzzles over why Obamacare has younger buyers subsidizing older ones: I discussed this with someone who works on Capitol Hill. I told him I understood the criteria for the first three but was struggling to understand the reason for the young to old age [...]

Supply and demand in p/c insurance

Always good when someone shores up the ranks of blogging actuaries, so welcome to Todd Bault! I guess he’s been posting awhile, but I seemed to have missed his earlier work. Todd is well-known in the actuarial community for being one of the leading insurance industry analysts, and he’s posting as part of the lineup [...]

Insolvency: What was the actuary’s role?

Time Flies Department: The Reliance Insurance insolvency turned 10 this year, and Best’s Review (sub. req., I think) was all over it. Reliance was one of three big insurers that went under in a 10-month span ending in March 2002, the others being Legion Insurance and Phico. The accompanying chart, which ranks the largest insolvencies [...]

Solvency II: Internal models shrink capital needs, QIS5 results show

EIOPA summarizes the results of QIS5 in press release here (pdf). Compared to the calculation under Solvency I standards, insurance groups have €86 billion less surplus capital available, which is a reduction of 44%. However, the QIS5 exercise demonstrated that this effect would be largely absorbed if insurance groups apply internal models and transitional measures [...]