David W. Dickson, FSA 2000, MAAA

Corporate Senior Actuary, Coventry Health Care Inc, Kansas City, MO

Brief description of the type of work you currently do:

Regional actuary responsible for the actuarial teams doing commercial group medical, 65 individual medical and Medicare Advantage: pricing, reserving, underwriting support, provider contracting analysis, and product development for the local health plans operating in 14 states.

Primary Area of Practice:

Health Benefit Systems

Other Areas of Practice / Interests:

General Management, Managed Care, Risk Management

Professional Background:

My 31 year career has primarily been focused on the group and individual medical insurance arena with brief stints in group disability and credit insurance, and a somewhat extended period as a process improvement expert and instructor, focusing on operational risk. I have served on the direct and reinsurance side of the business and in pricing, reserving, underwriting, lobbying and marketing roles. The companies I have served include a mutual company, three not–for–profit blues, four stock companies, and a small consulting firm. Twice I have served as the Chief Actuary. My experience has been full of variety and never boring.

Volunteer Experience:

Since 2004 I have worked with the SOA board in various capacities. I started as a volunteer member consultant on change management, process improvement and meeting facilitation. Working together with the staff we instituted various changes in how board meetings are conducted and how feedback is gathered and processed in order to continuously improve the way the board conducts its business. As a charter member of the Governance Committee (now the Leadership Development Committee) we created job descriptions for the presidents, VPs and board members. We developed the new nominating process and the annual leadership development meeting for new and existing board members. Currently, I am on the Strategic Planning Steering Committee developing the next iteration of the SOA's Strategy Map and metrics. Below is a summary of my service to the SOA and the profession and my community:

• Member of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee (2007–present)
• Speaker on Change Management, Process Improvement, and Operational Risk Management.
• Project Oversight Group: Statistical Tools for Health Actuaries Guide (2006–2007).
• Membership Value Strategic Action Team (2005–2007).
• Leadership Development Committee (2004–2007).
• Long Term Care Section Executive Committee (1999–2000).
• Local exam coordinator (1987–1990).

Other

• American Academy of Actuaries' (AAA) Transition Rules Work Group– Health Security Act of 1993.
• National Association of Insurance Commissioners' (NAIC) Small Group Health Insurance Reform– Industry Committee (1991).
• Local church budget committee and financial counselor
• Boy Scout leader
• Political Party Precinct Chairman

Vision Statement:

Our greatest challenge is to maintain a prestigious and academically rigorous credential while ensuring that those who employ and hire actuaries view our knowledge and value as relevant, practical, and worth the cost and time they invest in our training and continuing education. Not only must we continue to demonstrate our value to our traditional employers and clients, but we must find ways to reach out to a broader business community, governments and the general public that seeks to mitigate the adverse effects of future risk events and show them that we are uniquely skilled and trained to provide them with workable and practical answers. This requires that we strengthen our ties to academia for both research and basic education support. As we move to more online training and testing we must ensure the integrity of our credentialing and testing system. A new FSA should be fully qualified to sign an actuarial statement of opinion. In addition to the CERA designation we should consider more post–fellowship certifications in certain specialties. This would aide those that are seeking to move from one specialty to another to document their expertise and assure the public that our expertise is pertinent to their particular issue. We should work with other international actuarial organizations to establish an international standard for actuarial credentials, yet we should not wait for complete agreement to establish the standard ourselves in order to become the organization that any actuary, regardless of location or area of practice, seeks to join.