By Frank Cuypers, Yuriy Krvavych and Emil Valdez
The International Actuarial Association (IAA) is an organization that not only connects national actuarial associations, but also guides them in the education and professionalism of its membership. Its primary mission is to help the actuarial profession continue “to make a positive impact
on society.” Today, it has 74 full and 25 associate member associations around the world, with the Society of Actuaries (SOA) as a full member. In order to reach individual actuaries from its membership, it has formed seven special interest sections, with actuarial studies in non-life insurance (ASTIN) as a
section to provide a leading forum for actuaries and risk analysts in the non-life insurance industry.
Established in 1957 in New York City, ASTIN is the first and oldest section of the IAA. ASTIN has the vision and mission to generate value for its individual members. This is accomplished by helping them develop their professional skills through engagement with the industry and academia. ASTIN provides a forum for
innovative, high-quality and practical research in the mathematical foundations of non-life insurance and their applications to quantitative risk management. Prominent figures in the actuarial profession, like Lundberg, Cramér and de Finetti, have helped shape the scientific development of risk theory, which has
been considered the underlying mathematical foundation of actuarial science.
The emergence of non-life actuaries has been considered as the birth of “The Actuary of the Second Kind.” However, in response to global changes in the economic, social and political environments, ASTIN has evolved and broadened its boundaries from the well-established ratemaking and reserving to a more
contemporary quantitative risk management. Today, it is continually expanding that horizon to include the newly emerging development of data science and machine learning.
ASTIN organizes, mobilizes and endorses ASTIN Working Parties (AWPs) in order to: (a) foster applied research related to practical and meaningful non-life insurance and related topics, (b) extract more value from the intellectual potential of its membership, and (c) provide added value to ASTIN membership.
Each AWP is a self-organized group of actuarial and risk experts with a focused research goal. Completed and ongoing projects from AWPs include (1) a global survey of non-life reserving practices, (2) white papers on emerging techniques and methods of data analytics, (3) risk calculations and implications of the
IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) No. 17, (4) synergy of machine learning and traditional methods in reserving, (5) actuarial, insurance and legal implications of automated cars, and (6) cybersecurity risks.
To continue to provide value to its membership, it has the following ongoing activities:
- ASTIN Colloquium is an international conference held annually to bring together academics and practitioners in an environment for continuing professional development and for exchange of knowledge and expertise. The next IAA Section Colloquium will be held in Cape Town, Africa on April 2–5, 2019. Additional information can be found here IAA Section Colloquium 2019.
- ASTIN Bulletin regularly publishes original research articles. Established in 1958, ASTIN Bulletin is now the journal of the IAA and continues to be regarded as a leading international refereed journal covering a breadth of practical and theoretical work in actuarial science. Together with the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS), ASTIN sponsors the Hachemeister Prize, which is annually provided for the best paper published in the ASTIN Bulletin.
- ASTIN regularly organizes topical webinars. These are used to share knowledge and expertise among ASTIN members and the wider non-life actuarial community.
- ASTIN also encourages the development of actuarial science in emerging countries by: (1) sponsoring seminars on varied actuarial topics in these countries, (2) supporting the development of actuarial education through universities, (3) donating textbooks and granting free access to ASTIN Bulletin, and (4) providing funds to actuaries to attend the annual ASTIN Colloquium and related international conferences.
ASTIN Board would like to invite each of you to join ASTIN. You will find many benefits of joining the ASTIN Section such as up-to-date research in the area of non-life, upcoming conferences at reduced rates, and a network of members with a common interest, among other things.
When you renew your SOA membership, you can select to join ASTIN for a specified fee each year. Please visit the SOA website ( www.soa.org ) for details. Alternatively, you can visit the ASTIN Section link of the IAA website (provided below) to join.
Here is a welcoming video recently produced by ASTIN.
To learn more about ASTIN—its values, history, achievements, current activities and future plans—please see our 2017–2018 Annual Report, and also visit our web page on the IAA website www.actuaries.org .
For additional inquiries, you may directly email:
Frank Cuypers, chairman of ASTIN Board, frank.cuypers@prs-zug.com, Yuriy Krvavych, secretary of ASTIN Board, yuriy.krvavych@pwc.com, Emil Valdez, member of ASTIN Board and Coordinator of AWPs, emiliano.valdez@uconn.edu, or Juan Laverde, IAA sections coordinator, juan.laverde@actuaries.org.