By Tom Edwalds and Ian Duncan
Life & Annuity Symposium in Nashville, May 16–17
The E&R Section is sponsoring one session and a section breakfast at the Life and Annuity Symposium, and is co-sponsoring three sessions with the Predictive Analytics and Futurism (PAF) Section. Yvonne Chueh and Louis Adam will present a session about applying modern statistical techniques to the analysis of older age mortality. Yvonne will present analysis of the 2000‑08 Individual Annuity Experience using kth-nearest neighbor distances, and Louis will present analysis of CPP/QPP data using stepwise regression.
The sessions sponsored jointly by the E&R Section and the PAF Section are: "Predictive Analytics: Moving Out of Square One," presented by Jean-Marc Fix and Jeffery Robert Huddleston; "Behavioral Simulation and Its Actuarial Applications," presented by Spencer Allee and Shaio-Tien Pan; and "Predictive Analytics for Mortality, Quality, and Fraud," presented by Brian Lanzrath and James Palmer.
Jean-Marc and Jeffrey will walk participants through the analytical process of developing a basic generalized linear model and provide insights about the process of approaching or evaluating a modeling project. Spencer and Shaio-Tien will present case studies illustrating the use of advanced business analytics to understand mortality and morbidity implications that can be used in areas such as product design and inforce management. Brian and James will cover three practical applications of predictive modeling in life insurance: lab-based mortality models, examiner and agent quality assessment, and fraud detection.
Health Meeting in Philadelphia, June 15–17
The E&R Section is sponsoring two sessions at the 2016 Health Meeting, in addition to the traditional breakfast session. The breakfast session takes place on Thursday morning, June 16th. Attendees will have an opportunity to hear about plans for the Actuarial Research Conference in Minneapolis in July and the latest proposals for changes to the ASA syllabus, as well as networking with friends old and new. As an additional incentive this year, the breakfast will feature a full hot meal!! Speaking of syllabus changes, on Thursday morning at 9:00 a.m. Ian Duncan and Joan Barrett (who chaired the committee) will discuss proposals for “Health Actuary of the Future.” While the exam syllabus covers long-term insurance substantially, it is recognized that we need to give equal focus to short-term insurance. This is your opportunity to learn about some of the developing needs in the health space. Also on Thursday, at 2:15 p.m., Ian will chair a session entitled “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” discussing some of the problems that have emerged with Risk Adjustment in the ACA exchanges.
Tom Edwalds, FSA, ACAS, MAAA, is a clinical professor of finance at Depaul University in Chicago, Ill. He can be reached at tedwalds@gmail.com.
Ian Duncan, FSA, FCA, FCIA, FIA, MAAA, is adjunct associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He can be reached at duncan@pstat.ucsb.edu.