Candidate Questionnaire
Hsiang Kau, FSA 2005, MAAA 2002
Hanwha Life Insurance Company Vietnam
Chief Risk Officer
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Brief description of current work:
Responsible for Actuarial, Product development, and investment function
Primary Area of Practice:
Risk Management, Valuation and pricing
Other Areas of Practice
Investment
Professional Background
Provide a brief description of your professional background and the type of work you have performed and explain how these experiences have uniquely prepared you as an Elected Board Member and qualify you in carrying out the strategic direction of the SOA.
I graduated with a Masters’ degree in Actuarial Sciences from Ball State University (USA). I have since worked for various top insurance companies and across a broad range of actuarial fields, including both direct insurers and reinsurers. To further my career, I then worked overseas for Chubb Life and Hanwha Life in Vietnam as the Chief Actuary. I served as a SOA Greater Asia Committee member and International Committee member. I also had the opportunity to work directly with the Vietnamese Government on various insurance and actuarial regulations, including setting up the pension system for the country, and am currently working on the country’s RBC system and building the country’s first ever mortality table. My diversified experience and background help me better understand the need for our profession both domestically and internationally, especially in the Greater Asia region.
Volunteer, Governance and Personal Experience
Describe how your volunteer, governance and personal experiences would strengthen your contributions to the SOA Board, the organization, and strategic plan execution. Please list your relevant volunteer experience. Please include the name of the organization, your role, and approximate dates.
My extensive experiences both within USA and internationally will help me better understand the need of the profession from different perspectives due to different cultural, geographical, and political background., especially from less developed countries but with significant number of candidates. I am also proactively working on the promotion of our profession and the SOA influence in the new markets by visiting the famous local universities and introducing our profession and SOA to the students.
SOA Greater Asia Committee member, 2019 – Present
SOA Greater Asia Committee Webcast Subcommittee Chairman, 2019 – Present
SOA international Committee member, 2021 – Present
Actuarial Working Group member appointed by Ministry of Finance, Vietnam, 2010 – 2022
Vietnam mortality project sponsored by SOA and Insurance Association of Vietnam, project initiator and leader, 2019 – Present
Vietnam Pension program working group appointed by MOF, key contributing member, 2012 – 2014.
Agility/Change
Describe a significant change that you led in the workplace or in your volunteer activities. Explain what worked well and what could have gone better.
I was chosen to lead a reserve system conversion project, due to my extensive experience in valuation area and my programming skills. It was a major project involving the move of all in force policies from a legacy system which is a black box, factor-based reserve system. The project was challenging because the assumptions behind the factors were mostly unknown and there was a significant lack of documentation. As a result, the research work was intensive and time consuming. The final solution was to reprogram all policies from first principle and reconcile all the differences. The solution worked out quite well and the result was that we were able to successfully migrate the entire reserve system to a more transparent, first principle and seriatim based modern reserve system, I earned a prestigious Award of Excellence from the company, and I attribute my success to my professional expertise and strong technical knowledge in the field. Due to SOA's rigorous training and education system, I was well-prepared for the challenges in my professional life. I am always grateful and want to give back to the organization and this profession. This project was also successful due to the organization and coordination from the project members and the strong support from the upper management team. Upon reflection, documentation of the work performed could have been improved which could have saved tremendous time, effort and resources. Furthermore, improved documentation could serve as an example for future similar projects.
Motivating/Influencing
Describe a difficult situation or disagreement that you had in a professional setting during which opinions varied and you worked through the issues that led to a successful result.
I am on the investment committee for the company. Here bond is accounted as book value. Since the interest rate has dropped significantly for the past few years, and due to the difficult business environment, our profit target for the year maybe in jeopardy. The CEO started to order the sales of long-term bonds to realize capital gains in order to guarantee the profit target be achieved. However, selling long term bonds with higher yield will sacrifice our investment yield in the future years and cause the mismatch of the asset and liability durations. However, nobody wanted to disagree with the CEO. After carefully examining our monthly financial statement and profit pattern of our company and redoing the cash flow forecast of the remaining months of the year, I sent an email to CEO saying we should not sell bond to realize gains. So he immediately called a committee meeting, In the meeting I presented the findings from our financial statement, and the latest forecast for the year, I then explained why we can still reach the profit target without realizing capital gain, and why the selling of our higher interest earning bond can hurt the company’s future. After some intense discussion, the CEO agreed not to sell the bonds. At the end of year, we still managed to reach the profit target and the actual bottom-line figure was really close to the figure from my projection. In hindsight, the reason I was able to persuade the CEO and rest of the committee members were due to my detailed examination and analysis of the company’s financial situation and solid actuarial projection of the business, which were skills provided to me by the SOA education system.
Diversity
What additional actions do you think the Board should take regarding diversity, equity and inclusion?
Because of my ethnic background, I am especially interested in this topic. I strongly believe that SOA has done an excellent job thus far, but in order to expand SOA’s global reach, I would make a few suggestions. For example, in less developed countries, such as Vietnam (where I currently reside), examination fees may bar highly qualified candidates from taking exams. As such, I suggest offering more significant discounts for students taking exams before they are hired by employers. Additionally, the discount offered can be progressive, where if a student passes the first exam, we can offer a larger discount for the second exam, and so on. This would encourage students to pass the exams by lowering the potential barrier to entry and become more attracted to our profession. Another suggestion would be to improve cooperation with actuarial associations around the world - we currently have mutual admission with organizations in the UK and Australia. To improve our reach, with less developed countries like China and India, we could potentially consider waiving the first two exams if students can pass their respective country’s actuarial societies’ equivalent examinations. As we face fierce competition from actuarial associations (such as IFOA, etc.), an offer like this would hopefully increase students’ interest in SOA while maintaining and preserving the credibility and quality of our esteemed organization.
International
What can the SOA Board do to balance the needs of our global membership? How will your experience help the Board accomplish this?
As I am based outside USA, becoming a board member can enhance the influence of SOA in my local market tremendously. I frequently go to local universities to talk with students in order to promote our profession and our organization. Being a board member carries more weight, and shows the SOA is putting more emphasis on the global development of the profession. Because I have more direct contact with the local government and regulators, I will be able to promote more cooperation between the local industry and the SOA. For example, I am working on a project in which we are building local mortality tables involving both local government, industry association, and the SOA. Being a board member, I will be able to work more officially with the local regulators to have more insurance related regulations that are consistent with international standards, as well as promote more communication and cooperation between SOA the local professional industry. For example, I would work towards allowing some exam credits as I mentioned above. This will increase the competitiveness of SOA currently who is facing direct competition from other actuarial organization and encourage more students taking SOA exams and increase our member counts in the rest of the world while maintain our high standard of credibility and quality.
Emerging
Recently, the number of new candidates for actuarial exams has been declining. What additional actions should the Board take on this topic in relation to keeping the SOA successful?
In my previous answers, I briefly touched upon this issue. I had proposed several potential solutions to increase the number of new candidates, such as giving a more significant discount to university students taking exams and giving credit to candidates who have passed equivalent exams in their local actuarial society or university classes. However, I firmly believe this issue is pervasive across the whole insurance industry rather than solely within the actuarial profession. Insurance is typically viewed as a more conservative industry, and slow to react to the latest technological advancements. As actuaries, we have the duty to work with our industry to improve this image, tap into more diversified and less conventional practice areas, and raise public awareness by supporting and participating in some global initiatives, i.e., the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. This will enable us to leverage existing framework to showcase SOA’s activities and the transferability of the actuarial skillset to expand opportunities for research, education, and exchange of talent among new stakeholders, and connect with and attract purpose-driven generations. Furthermore, this will establish SOA as key voice in global discourse on role of insurance and the profession in sustainable development, support members and employers already active in this area, demonstrate actuarial capabilities to outside parties, thus raising awareness to attract new actuarial candidates.