December 2018

Notes in General

By Anthony Cappelletti

Welcome to the December 2018 edition of General Insurance Insights, the SOA’s biannual newsletter for those with an interest in general insurance (aka P&C or property and casualty insurance). In this edition are several articles for actuaries in the SOA’s GI Community. The first article is “Loss Reserving in the Future: Innovation in a Rapidly Changing World” by Chris Nyce and Drew Golfin. It was previously published in the October 2018 issue of CompAct, the SOA’s Technology Section newsletter. The article deals with GI loss reserving and its evolution in a world with big data, machine learning and advanced statistics. The second article is by SOA staff fellow, Scott Lennox, FSA, FCIA, FCAS and me. Our article outlines the updates to the two SOA published textbooks used in the GI track exams: Fundamentals of General Insurance Actuarial Analysis by Jacqueline Friedland, FSA, FCIA, FCAS, MAAA, and General Insurance Financial Reporting Topics. The updates to both textbooks are significant. There is also an article titled “The ASTIN Section of the International Actuarial Association” by Frank Cuypers, Yuriy Krvavych and Emil Valdez. It provides an outline of the many benefits of ASTIN membership for those with an interest in general insurance.

SOA senior staff fellow Stuart Klugman, FSA, CERA, Ph.D., once again provides an update on the NAIC’s Job Analysis Project for general insurance appointed actuaries in the U.S.   

Also included in this issue:

  • General Insurance Research Update, an update on the latest from the SOA’s Research efforts relevant to GI; and
  • GI PD Opportunities Update, an update of professional development (PD) opportunities with significant GI relevant content.

Last issue, I provided an update on NFIP reauthorization. At that time, I noted that an extension was passed by Congress in March of this year that was to expire at the end of July. This was after several previous temporary extensions. At the end of July, another temporary extension occurred. The latest temporary extension expires Nov. 30, 2018. By the time this is published, we will already know what happened. Will it be reauthorized without significant changes, will it be reauthorized with significant changes or will another temporary extension occur? I’ll provide another update in the next edition.

Our goals with General Insurance Insights are to keep readers informed on topics of interest to general insurance actuaries and to develop the general insurance actuarial community within the SOA. We welcome your feedback and ideas to help us achieve these goals. If you have questions, feedback or ideas regarding General Insurance Insights, feel free to contact me.

I would also like to take this opportunity to inform our readers that we are always looking for volunteers in general insurance at the SOA. Please visit the SOA Volunteer Opportunities Database. The database includes all open volunteer opportunities at the SOA. In addition to this, we are also looking for ideas on GI continuing education offerings and writers (or ideas) for articles in upcoming issues of General Insurance Insights. Let me know if you would like to contribute.

Anthony Cappelletti, FSA, FCIA, FCAS, is a staff fellow for the SOA. He can be contacted at acappelletti@soa.org.