Description: This article is about change, how it affects us, how we react to change, and how leaders need to be change agents.

Description: Over the past 20 years, the roles and responsibilities of actuaries have expanded dramatically. We have extended the use of our core skills, namely the ability to model and manage financial risk, to new practice areas, such as asset/liability management and capital management. At the same time, we have broadened our client base to include most types of financial services organizations, many of which are operating in a global environment. This article discusses what the growing role of the actuarial profession means for current and future generations of actuaries.

Description: This article is about how innovative use of technology will be a key differentiator for future success and maybe even survival, and how technology will switch from a defensive to an offensive tool, aimed principally at driving revenues. The article addresses the question: How will successful leaders in the insurance industry use technology in the future?

Description: The financial services industries that most actuaries serve are fundamentally changing. So it’s critical that the profession change, also, to meet the new needs of those and other industries using actuarial services. This editorial is about the questions that must be addressed by actuaries who want to succeed in the new environment.

Description: This article discusses changes to the Society of Actuaries educational and examination program. The eagerly awaited conversion rules for the new education and examination system have been published. Now the design team has turned its attention to refining topics and defining learning objectives.

Description: Insurance professionals are seeing the industry change before their very eyes, and many are being forced to change with it. But it seems those pushed and pushing the most are those touched directly by the Internet’s World Wide Web. In this article, seven executives and professionals are interviewed about their work on this new fast track. They sometimes had widely varying opinions, but they agreed on two points: the Web is rapidly forcing a restructuring of the way insurance business is done, and this will create new and perhaps more opportunities for actuaries.

Description: Among the most outspoken of the life insurance industry’s authorities is Ronald Butkiewicz, president and CEO, Irish Life of North America ILONA. In speeches to industry groups, including a 1995 presentation to the Actuarial Society of Greater New York, Butkiewicz makes the challenging statement, 'American society doesn’t need the life insurance industry. I am also quick to add that I don’t think American society needs banks, either.' However, said Butkiewicz in an interview for this article, 'It does need our products.' The article goes on to explain how Butkiewicz sees life insurance becoming part of one, big financial services industry.

Description: A regulator's perspective on the changing insurance and financial services industry, including changes in the state regulatory environment driven by the regulators themselves, as well as potential changes in the competitive environment prompted by the Financial Services Modernization Act.

Description: Profiles of five actuaries who pursued nontraditional careers, using their actuarial skills and experience in a new area.

Description: Reengineering has become a corporate buzzword of the 1990s. This article addresses why companies decide to reengineer and explores the risks, as well as the benefits.