Description: Financial regulators, rating agencies and many commentators have blamed weak Risk Culture for many of the large losses and financial company failures of the past decade. But their exposition regarding a strong Risk Culture only goes as far as describing a few of the risk management practices of an organization and falls far short of describing the beliefs and motivations that are at the heart of any culture. This discussion will present thinking about how the fundamental beliefs of Neo Classical Economics clash with the recommended risk practices and how the beliefs that underpin Enterprise Risk Management are fundamentally consistent with the recommended risk management practices but differ significantly from Neo Classical Economics beliefs.

Description: In this article, the author examines five common perspectives on risk and see how they affect not just each participant’s own choices but everyone else’s choices, as well.

Description: In this session 36OF of the New York Annual Meeting panelists discuss and compare the risk management practices used by insurers and by banks. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 3.

Description: While intended to assist health plan actuaries responsible for stress testing and ORSA filings, this session will also be informative for actuaries interested in communicating the impact of potential catastrophic events for health plans to their management and board. It will begin with a discussion of event thresholds for stress tests and their impact on capital and financial statements. Presenters will take a detailed look at several catastrophic event case studies (historical and hypothetical) in the following areas: healthcare specific (e.g. pandemic, specialty Rx), financial institution/credit market, operational/business, strategic and multi-event scenarios.</

Description: The first of two parts of a panel discussion, by conference call, on the the evolution of Enterprise Risk Management at life insurance companies, and actuaries' roles in that evolution.

Description: This is the first of a two-part article introducing and elaborating an “Adaptor” strategy for ERM. Such a strategy is intended to fulfil two purposes: first, switching among four styles of risk-coping strategies in order to track qualitative changes in a business’s risk environment; and, second, to support the business in navigating with resilience through all the seasons of a business-economic cycle, i.e., of boom, bust, moderate, uncertain. This latter requires careful study of the nature of resilience, the familiar idea of bounce back, and the less familiar idea of bounce forward. Part I of our article is underpinned therefore by a supplementary document (available from https://riskviews.wordpress.com/adaptor-exceptionalism/), which addresses the issue of structural change in a business or economy. It draws heavily on ideas taken from the discipline of control engineering, as well as some from ecology, social anthropology, and economics. The entire two-part article is thus an exercise in cross-disciplinary Systems Thinking.

Description: This article discusses four approaches to managing the enterprise-wide risk: Diversification, Loss Controlling, Risk Trading and Risk Steering.

Description: Feature article discussing the four main perspectives of ERM.

Description: This is the second of a two-part article introducing and elaborating an “Adaptor” strategy for ERM. Such a strategy is intended to fulfil two purposes: first, switching among four styles of risk-coping strategies in order to track qualitative changes in a business’s risk environment; and, second, to support the business in navigating with resilience through all the seasons of a business-economic cycle, i.e., of boom, bust, moderate, uncertain. This latter requires careful study of the nature of resilience, the familiar idea of bounce back, and the less familiar idea of bounce forward. Part I of our article is underpinned therefore by a supplementary document (available from https://riskviews.wordpress.com/adaptor-exceptionalism/), which addresses the issue of structural change in a business or economy. It draws heavily on ideas taken from the discipline of control engineering, as well as some from ecology, social anthropology, and economics. The entire two-part article is thus an exercise in cross-disciplinary Systems Thinking.

Description: This article discusses new developments on the regulatory front. Under the new agreement, insurance company management and boards will be required to issue a statement that reflects their judgment about the firm’s viability, including its capital adequacy. The required opinion will have five elements - identifying risks, measuring risks, a risk feedback loop, a risk tolerance statement, and a risk policy.