Tom Bakos, FSA 1972, MAAA

Consulting Actuary, Tom Bakos Consulting, Inc., Ridgway, CO

Brief description of the type of work you currently do:

Consulting Actuary–providing services related to innovative product design, protection of intellectual property through use of patents, and as an expert on insurance subject matter.

Primary Area(s) of Practice:

Life Insurance and Non–traditional subject matter

Other Areas of Practice/Interests:

Banking/Investments, Financial Reporting, General Management, Long Term Care, Marketing & Distribution, Product Development, Property & Casualty, Regulatory, Reinsurance, Risk Management, Smaller Insurance Company

Professional Background:

Historically–I have over 40 years of experience including many roles within life insurance companies before forming my own actuarial consulting practice.

Currently–I focus on innovation in the insurance industry by helping individual inventors and insurance companies protect their intellectual property through business method patents.

I co–edit and publish the Insurance IP Bulletin, a semi–monthly electronic newsletter, available free to readers with an interest in intellectual property in the insurance and broader financial services areas. I also provide more traditional actuarial services including serving as an actuarial expert.

Volunteer Experience:

I served on the SOA Board from 2002–2005. During that period I was active in reviewing SOA publications resulting in:

• The new look for The Actuary magazine;
• Creation of the SOA News Today; and
• Creation of the SOA Practice Forum.

I currently serve as a Contributing Editor for The Actuary and as a Department Editor for the AAA's Contingencies magazine and frequently contribute articles to both.

Prior to being elected to the Board, I served on the Non–Traditional Marketing (now Marketing & Distribution) section council. I have had many years service on SOA E&E committees most recently contributing to the Fundamentals of Actuarial Practice (FAP) e–learning course. I have been a panelist at many SOA meetings. I currently serve the AAA as a member of the Council on Professionalism and as Chairman of the Committee on Professional Responsibility. Most recently, I have participated on AAA committees addressing Principal Based Assumptions valuation.

Vision Statement:

The most significant and important issue facing the actuarial profession is our identity. The SOA has a role to play in addressing that issue and it will be challenging. As individual actuaries an interesting question is what professional organization that we belong to best represents us? Is there only one? The SOA has become effective in describing what actuaries do. But who we are, where we belong, and how we fit into the grand scheme of things are questions we are just beginning to address. While, technically, an international organization, practically, the SOA operates in a primarily Canadian and U.S. dominated environment although we are just now beginning to recognize the growing Asian influence as that membership block increases.

In particular, the actuarial profession in the U.S. needs better definition. Currently five actuarial organizations represent actuaries in the U.S. Only one, the AAA was organized specifically to represent and identify all U.S. actuaries regardless of practice area. This multiple organization structure is confusing (and expensive) to U.S. actuaries; it is confusing to our U.S. public; and it is confusing to the broader international actuarial community where political boundaries typically contain a unified actuarial profession.

The SOA has a very important role to play in resolving this problem. In the next few years the SOA needs to work with the other four actuarial professional organizations in the U.S. to coordinate and create a U.S. actuarial identity. Then it needs to move on to find its place in the international community.