Description: Charles Cadman and his team may be new to Kaggle’s data science challenges, but that didn’t stop them from achieving a top-ten finish.

Description: Discussion of how to apply FinTech and IT processes and technologies to building an in house actuarial models.

Description: View the complete issue for the August 2014 Reinsurance News newsletter.

Description: This paper presents a new methodology for obtaining fast algorithms and closed form solutions for pricing callable bonds in continuous time models. Results are directly applicable to regulatory scenario testing, immunization and market value accounting.

Description: Jeff Sagarin is one of the most well-known figures in the sports analytics world, with his sports ratings appearing in USA Today for over 30 years. Few may know that he started his career in the actuarial world, even passing three exams before his sports ratings took off. This article explores the parallels between the challenges of developing sports rating systems and the challenges that actuaries face every day.

Description: This work investigates the use of a statistical approach to calculate the incurred but not reported IBNR reserve directly. This allows for the reserve to be estimated in one step, without completion factors, and it provides a confidence interval around the estimate of IBNR as well.

Description: In this continuation of our July 2013 article we explore an algorithm for evaluating Hidden Markov Models in detail. A preferred method in speech recognition technology, Hidden Markov Models are a promising technique when dealing with data you suspect may be driven by a change in a unobservable state. The example in the article is provided in an Excel workbook for the reader to follow along with.

Description: An introduction of predictive modeling techniques that are applicable to insurance industry, including generalized linear model (GLM) and classification and regression tree model(CART). Other models such as data clustering, neural network, and support vector machine (SVM), are also briefly discussed.

Description: In this paper, we derive three important longevity Greeks on the basis of an extended version of the Lee-Carter model that incorporates stochastic volatility.

Description: This predictive modeling for life insurers paper by a Deloitte research team is one of a collection of essays that examine how existing or new methods or models can be applied to the life insurance industry.