Description: Full version of Small Talk Newsletter, May 1999, Issue No. 13.

Description: In this artice, seven former Society of Actuaries presidents offer their views of the 'Big Tent' approach to growing and strengthening the SOA and the profession. They were asked for their insights by SOA President Howard J. Bolnick, who crafted the Big Tent concept as head of the SOA Committee on Strategic Planning in 1998.

Description: This article discusses the pros and cons of high speed electronic transfer of medical data, and the implications this technology may have on health actuaries.

Description: This article reviews the results of the first SOA study of large medical claims, defined as claims greater than $25,000.

Description: This article discusses the media attention received when Al Easton, as 1997-1999 Futurism Section council chair, coordinated a study of the section members and asked the members to forecast future events in members' practice areas. The study utilized the Delphi technique, which assembles a group of experts and polls them on the same questions in up to four rounds of surveying. Each time, the previous round's answers are revealed so the experts can consider their next responses in light of their peers' views. From: The Actuary, January 2000, volume 34, issue 1.

Description: This article summarizes the results of a Delphi study amoung SOA Futurism Section members about the actuarial profession and the U.S. economy and other matters in the years 2010 and 2050.

Description: Four experts offer their views on why the life insurance industry as we've come to know it is disappearing and what will be different about the new industry evolving, including: more competition from other financial services providers, distribution changes, better use of technology, and consolidation.

Description: Among the most outspoken of the life insurance industry’s authorities is Ronald Butkiewicz, president and CEO, Irish Life of North America ILONA. In speeches to industry groups, including a 1995 presentation to the Actuarial Society of Greater New York, Butkiewicz makes the challenging statement, 'American society doesn’t need the life insurance industry. I am also quick to add that I don’t think American society needs banks, either.' However, said Butkiewicz in an interview for this article, 'It does need our products.' The article goes on to explain how Butkiewicz sees life insurance becoming part of one, big financial services industry.

Description: This articles describes how actuaries can contribute to the understanding of the financing of Medicare and the urgency of its problems.

Description: Insurance professionals are seeing the industry change before their very eyes, and many are being forced to change with it. But it seems those pushed and pushing the most are those touched directly by the Internet’s World Wide Web. In this article, seven executives and professionals are interviewed about their work on this new fast track. They sometimes had widely varying opinions, but they agreed on two points: the Web is rapidly forcing a restructuring of the way insurance business is done, and this will create new and perhaps more opportunities for actuaries.