Description: Table of Contents

Description: In the past few years, SoA members and leaders have raised questions about future needs for actuarial skills, globalization of markets, and the appropriate focus of the present education system in preparing actuaries for their professional futures. As a consequence of these questions, the SoA Board of Governors set aside a major portion of its January 1994 meeting to discuss the education of actuaries, with primary consideration being given to a longer horizon than the immediate future. Chris Daykin, representing the Institute of Actuaries, reported that the Institute was incorporating fundamental changes to its basic Education and Examination [E&E] system. These changes were aimed at focusing more on fundamental principles and away from details of practice.

Description: This paper is a sequel to Shapiro et. al. in that it discusses a similar role for CAI in topics specific to the text Actuarial Mathematics, by Bowers et. al 1986. The topics covered are the previous topics of actuarial notation, basic concepts, and what-if analysis, along with some new ideas for the presentation of stochastic models.

Description: This paper contains the results of a survey which show that computer skills have appeared to become a more important part of the hiring process. From the Actuarial Research Clearing House 1997 VOL. 1

Description: Non-consequentiality is quite consequential for the claims made for the applicability of Risk Theory RT to decision problems that are not transparently tactical or wholly instrumental. On the negative side, RT is not normative or even a complete heuristic in such contexts. The author takes strong exception to the common tendencies, A to link risk theory with welfarism and versions of utilitarianism, and B to claim that with or without but especially with such linkage RT is normative in both moral and rational analysis, choice and action.

Description: Continuing change pervades the actuarial world. Actuarial tools and techniques are constantly evolving, new financial products and services appear regularly, legislation and regulation rarely remain unchanged for long, consumers are becoming better informed and more sophisticated, the financial environment is becoming increasingly global, distinctions between types of financial institution are becoming more blurred, and the areas in which actuaries find applications for their skills become more varied. In this context, the most important attribute for actuaries is the capacity to adapt. This paper considers some implications for university actuarial programs of the need to develop adaptive actuaries. It discusses the results of a survey of the preferred learning styles of Macquarie University actuarial students, examines the newly introduced Australian actuarial subject called 'The Actuarial Control Cycle,' and looks at the use of portfolios of student work. It concludes that in order to develop adaptive actuaries for the 21st century, actuarial programs must broaden the range and type of teaching/learning activities and assessment methods provided for students.

Description: The Actuarial Education and Research Fund AERF is a not for profit corporation organized under the applicable law of the State of Illinois in 1976. This paper focuses on the maturing of AERF as well as its creation and implementation by the Society of Actuaries Committee on Professional Development.

Description: The basic thesis of this paper is that student capability to iNteract with new problems can be significantly increased by frequently exposing them to Written derivations, verbal-Intuitive justification of formulae and core sets of Comprehensive techniques by which to approach problems. Both instructor composition of problem resources for presentation and student practice of these problem resources can be achieved by semi-mechanical procedures accessible to everyone. For brevity we shall refer to this type of instruction by the acronym WINC. Presented at the 30th Actuarial Research Conference, August 17-19, 1995, Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania

Description: During the last decade, a vast activity had been observed in generalizing of the classical discrete distributions. The main idea was to apply the extended versions fur modeling different kinds of dependent count or frequency data structure in various fields. In the present paper we suggest extensions of the classical univariate geometric, negative binomial, Poisson, Bernoulli, binomial and logarithmic series distributions, by including an additional parameter. It has a natural interpretation in terms of zero-inflation, and because of this we named the corresponding generalized versions adding inflated-parameter.

Description: The study of Employee Benefits has always been aided by using financial algorithms. During recent semesters, the Lotus 1-2-3 package Lotus has been introduced to students due to the explosion of its use in the business community. This paper will show how our students use Lotus to design a spreadsheet for computing minimum annual distributions from tax-sheltered plans.