Description: This article examines the property losses sustained by homeowners and the economic losses sustained by insurance companies and government agencies due to California wildfires.

Description: This provides a basic example of a mathematical model which may be used to build an investment portfolio which will minimize the risk of interest rate fluctuations.

Description: Two different types of fertility are examined in this paper using the quinquennial age-specific fertility rates for years 1926-1989. The two types studied are: the total fertility rate and the generational fertility rate. The authors concluded that it is hard to predict the future trend of fertility rates using either of the ways of grouping the data. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1993, VOL. 2.

Description: It is common for a pension plan to be amended to improve benefits in respects of service after the date of amendment. This will be referred to as a non-retroactive amendment. The application of the entry age normal and projected unit credit cost methods to this situation requires that a decision be made about the way to handle such an amendment. In this paper, these two cost methods and their application to such an amendment are considered in turn. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1994, Vol. 1.

Description: This paper presents Bayesian models for analysis of claim lag data. The analysis of claim runoff patterns investigate the extraction of information on trend and seasonal patterns in incurred claims. This is investigated on the basis of individual group data, and also relative to a larger aggregation of pooled experience. The models are implemented based on Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. The models are applied to examples using simulated claim lag data. From Actuarial Research Clearing House, 2003, Vol. 1.

Description: In this paper, the author uses simple risk portfolios to discuss the abilities and shortcomings of the current methodologies for Value-at Risk [VaR], and suggests methodologies which can be used to facilitate the aggregation of VaR measures.

Description: In December 1997, the Society of Actuaries held a conference whose focus was actuarial and financial modeling. During the course of that conference, one of the speakers mentioned a number of technologies his firm was using for modeling, which were either unfamiliar or only vaguely familiar to some of the audience. The purpose of this paper is to define each of the technologies mentioned during that presentation and to briefly describe their distinguishing characteristics. The technologies discussed in this paper are statistical pattern recognition [SPR], neural networks [NNs], genetic algorithms [GAs], simulated annealing, fractal analysis, chaos theory, rule induction, data fusion algorithms [DFAs], data compression, fuzzy logic, case-based reasoning, and expert systems.

Description: This paper addresses the success stories about how continuous process improvement programs and the use of statistical methods have cut costs in companies while improving the quality of products. Suggestions regarding implementation are presented. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1993, VOL. 1.

Description: This article discusses a continuous estimator of a mixing distribution. Specifically the estimator investigated is a mixture of gamma distributions whose parameters are calculated by considering the determinants of certain moment matrices. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1993, VOL. 2.

Description: Two-dimensional data can be smoothed by minimizing a combination of the sum of weighted absolute deviations from initial estimates and the sums of absolute values of differences in the two directions. This paper discusses the techniques of parametric programming which make it feasible to explore the different results obtained by varying the emphasis given to fit versus smoothness. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1994, VOL. 1.