Description: John Naisbitt, in Megatrends, defined a megatrend as a general shift in thinking or approach affecting countries, industries and organizations. This article challenges actuaries to consider off-the-charts factors within their risk maps and consider their potential impact.

Description: The Society of Actuaries' managing director of actuarial research provided an overview of research activities including the funding behind research projects and the staff/volunteers involved with research.

Description: In this paper, Honorable Mention Essay for the Society of Actuaries' Entrepreneurial Actuaries Section 2010 Papers Competition, the author examines the rapidly increasing costs of maintaining the U.S. prison system and the fiscal pressures the federal and state governments are faced with, and proposes a plan for an early prisoner release program “with a rigorous, merit-based approach that can be expected to demonstrate favorable outcomes for the general public and the released prisoner.” This plan involves “an optimized process for evaluating the perils associated with freeing candidates eligible for early release - an individualized assessment and quantification of those risks…” The article goes on to describe the costs, benefits, risks, and critical success factors. The report includes two appendices.

Description: This article describes a ranking system for early prisoner release. It is intended to describe the framework and strategy needed for mitigating the risk of such programs and optimizing those programs’ outcomes.

Description: Part I of a four-part series on insurance product regulations around the world. Provides a good high-level summary of the regulations as of 2002.

Description: This article describes the “Arithmeter”, invented by Elizur Wright, to expedite the calculations made necessary by the legislation that he himself had drafted that required the Massachusetts Insurance Department to compute net level premium reserves on all policies in force. One of the few Arithmeters in existence was donated to, and is now in the possession of, the SOA.

Description: According to the book 'The Limits to Growth' by Dennis L. Meadows et al., exponential population growth is the looming cause of five major trends of global concern- accelerating industrialization, increasing population pressure, rapid disappearance of unused arable land, depletion of non-renewable resources, and a deteriorating environment. Can disaster be avoided? The author of this article suggests that since actuaries are self-styled futurists, using our mathematical skills to define, analyze, and solve complex business and social problems, we should not be left behind on this one.

Description: Through a public relations effort launched first by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries [CIA] and then the SOA, two actuaries representing the profession capitalized on their abilities to analyze future contingent events in the 1998 baseball season’s home run race. This article describes the efforts of Mel Norton, FCIA and John Dewan, FSA to predict who would break Roger Maris’ 1961 record of 61 home runs in one season.

Description: Article from The Actuary, March 1972 – volume 6 - Issue 3 provides the author's comments on Health Maintenance Organizations and describes an opportunity for actuaries to apply as service providers to this developing industry.

Description: IACA, and IAA Section has a key role to play at ICA, held only every 4 years. This feature gives you a flavour of IACA highlights in Berlin, June 2018.