By Anthony Cappelletti
Welcome to the December 2019 issue of General Insurance Insights, the SOA’s biannual newsletter for those with an interest in general insurance (GI) (aka P&C or property and casualty insurance). This issue includes a couple of articles on current issues facing the general insurance industry. The first article is “Cats and Dogs and Insurance.” I wrote this article to inform our readers on some of the effects that pets have on GI. The second article is “General Insurance Ratemaking and Reserving (GIRR) Exam—2019 Syllabus Updates.” This article is by SOA Staff Fellow Scott Lennox, FSA, FCAS, FCIA. It outlines recent changes to the GIRR Exam syllabus and revisions to Jacqueline Friedland’s textbook Fundamentals of General Insurance Actuarial Analysis in the upcoming second edition. This SOA published textbook is the primary syllabus resource for the SOA’s GIRR Exam.
In the past several issues of General Insurance Insights, SOA Senior Staff Fellow Stuart Klugman, FSA, CERA, Ph.D., has provided updates on the NAIC’s review of the SOA GI Track. The last update included information regarding the NAIC’s assessment that an FSA attained through the SOA’s GI track is an NAIC Accepted Actuarial Designation, meeting NAIC standards of a qualified actuary to sign the NAIC P/C Statement of Actuarial Opinion (SAO). In this issue, Stuart provides further insights into what the NAIC’s assessment means for appointed actuaries signing the NAIC P/C SAO in the article “NAIC Signing Approval Update.”
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.
Over the past several issues, I provided updates on the status of NFIP reauthorization. The NFIP has been kept operational through a sequence of temporary extensions. The latest temporary extension was set to expire on Nov. 21, 2019. By the time this is published, we will already know what happened when this one expires. It will either be reauthorized without significant changes, with significant changes or another temporary extension will occur. I will try to keep our readers informed. It seems most likely to be another temporary extension when the current temporary extension expires.
UPDATE: On Nov. 21, Congress passed legislation with another temporary extension for the NFIP. This extension expires on Dec. 20, 2019. This is the 14th temporary extension of the NFIP since 2017. This is unprecedented in the history of the NFIP. I should point out that in June of this year, the House Financial Services Committee unanimously voted to pass bipartisan legislation that included a five-year reauthorization of the NFIP and some reforms to help policyholders. It has become frustrating to many NFIP stakeholders that Congress has refused to address the issues of the NFIP. The NFIP has over five million policyholders. These policyholders count on the continued operation of the NFIP for coverage. The endless last-minute temporary extensions cause unnecessary stress to policyholders—each time a temporary extension nears expiration they must consider the possibility that they will lose coverage for losses from floods.
Another current issue for GI actuaries is the Actuarial Standards Board (ASB) proposal for a new Actuarial Standard of Practice (ASOP) on the actuarial aspects of property/casualty (i.e. general insurance) rate filings. While the ASB has ASOPs dealing with actuarial estimates and risk classification used in ratemaking, there is currently no ASOP dealing specifically with the actuarial aspects of rate filings. The proposed ASOP intends to fill the gap. The ASB is requesting input from interested parties to help them develop the new ASOP. The deadline for interested party input is Feb. 28, 2020. For more information, visit the ASB website.
Our goals with General Insurance Insights are to keep readers informed on topics of interest to GI actuaries and to develop the GI 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 GI 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 authors (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.