2024 Health Meeting - Session 9E: Dueling Perspectives on Presenting Actuarial Work to Non-Technical Audiences 6.26.24 Recording

With the unprecedented proliferation in the size and complexity of data over the past decade, actuaries have invested considerable time and energy in the development of new skills and expertise in order to be able to understand and use “big data” to its fullest potential in the development of actuarial work product. In many cases, however, the decision makers, policymakers, and other principals for whom actuaries are producing actuarial work product lack the necessary expertise to readily interpret the results of such analyses. This begs an important question: is it incumbent upon actuaries to create tools and training materials to help non-technical decision makers achieve a baseline level of knowledge about data and the tools we use to analyze it? Or is it more effective for actuaries to meet non-technical audiences at their current level of understanding when explaining and interpreting actuarial work product? In most cases, the answer will be a combination of the two strategies, but too frequently actuaries fail to allocate an adequate amount of time and energy analyzing this aspect of their project deliverables as they do the underlying actuarial issues. In this session, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of designing and developing tools and training materials to help the decision makers increase their understanding of the big h data versus meeting decision makers where they are. We will also discuss key factors to consider when establishing a strategy from multiple perspectives: the actuary’s, the decision maker’s, and a non-actuary technical expert’s. Finally, we will provide the audience with a framework for implementing these principles in their project work.The panel for this session will include: An actuary with 10+ years of experience consulting for clients and third-party stakeholders of varying levels of technical sophistication A researcher and data scientist with 20+ years of experience working with big data and presenting findings to a variety of technical and non-technical audiences A former or current State or Federal decision maker/policymaker who has extensive experience as the recipient of actuarial work product that relies on big data Attendees should expect to leave this session with a more complete understanding of how to present the results of complex actuarial analyses that rely on big data to non-technical decision makers and policymakers and insights into how to begin implementing the content presented into their day-to-day work.