Description: The American Academy of Actuaries announces the inaugural Award for Research, to be awarded to an early career scholar for the best research from an actuarial perspective. The theme for this year is Climate Change/ Climate Risk.

Description: Three consultants offer their views on a pandemic and post-pandemic economic future that awaits Mexico. COVID-19 deepened the contraction of the Mexican economy. As manufacturing and consumption bounce back, sustaineddemand for services can help recovery. But a policy push is needed. The global pandemic came at a time when the Mexican economy had contracted for five straight quarters due to avariety of factors such as deceleration in investment and private consumption and uncertainty around the free tradeagreement with the United States and Canada. The COVID-19 crisis accelerated this trend, resulting in the largest contraction since the Great Depression of 1929.

Description: This article by Carlos Arocha explores the protection gap throughout Latin America for coverage against natural catastrophic events. As climate change has increased both the frequency and severity of these events, coverage gaps have weighed on both household and public sector economics. In the article, Carlos highlights different methods for evaluating the size of this protection gap, and discusses a number of different ideas for closing this gap, through private sector initiatives, public sector changes, or private-public partnerships.

Description: Climate risk modeling is taking center stage. With businesses increasingly expected to show how they assess, adapt to, and mitigate the risks of climate change, companies are asking: What is the right climate risk modeling approach for our business?

Description: The Drake Risk and Insurance Workshop on Catastrophe Risk took place virtually on February 19, 2021, hosted by the School of Actuarial Science & Risk Management in the College of Business and Public Administration at Drake University. The purpose of this article is to share with the actuarial science community some experience in organizing this event amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Description: The growing global recognition of the importance of climate-related risks (transition and physical) has triggered a significant demand for research on the interface between climate and actuarial sciences, for example on the impact of risks from climate change on insurance markets and their operations. Furthermore, the systemic nature of climate-related risks underpins actuaries’ need to engage and work with diverse groups of stakeholders, including clients, communities, governments, regulators, boards, and investors. Contributions are invited for a special issue of the Annals of Actuarial Science featuring research on the topic ‘Managing Climate-Related Risks’. This special issue aims to capture leading interdisciplinary thinking, with clear relevance to actuarial problems in pensions and insurance.

Description: Actuaries can play an active role in social impact toby helping vulnerable communities access otherwise inaccessible insurance that can help increase their climate change resilience and improve their living conditions by lowering the risks that they face.

Description: With large parts of Italy back in lockdown due to a second wave of COVID 19, the P&C insurance market is still waiting for potential legal actions to emerge from those seeking compensation for negligent conduct during this exceptional catastrophe.

Description: Recognizing the benefit for actuarial discussions about how COVID-19 will affect our work, the Smaller Insurance Company Section of the Society of Actuaries hosted “COVID-19: What a Smaller Insurance Company Actuary Needs to Know Virtual Town Hall” on April 17, 2020. The following delves into these presentations and discussions.