Description: The December 2013/January 2014 edition of The Actuary magazine—the Society of Actuaries’ flagship publication.

Description: The actuarial profession is marching into the age of Big Data. Increasingly, employers in various actuarial fields are requiring new hires to have sophisticated knowledge in statistics and data science. To meet the new demands from the industry and the profession, one of the key additions to the SOA’s new curriculum is an exam in Statistics for Risk Modeling (SRM) which includes modern statistical and data science techniques. There is also a new proctored project on Predictive Analytics, as a capstone requirement following the completion of the SRM Exam. At the University of Toronto, we recently underwent a major actuarial science curriculum redesign, in order to stay current with new trends and demand from the profession and in line with the new professional curriculum.

Description: NAIC Approves SOA GI Track for Qualified Actuary Education.

Description: The article summarizes two of the highest rated sessions sponsored by the Reinsurance Section during the 2013 SOA Annual Meeting in San Diego.

Description: Panel discussion on current issues, trends, and methodology in individual disability income insurance, including overinsurance, pricing, financial reporting, as well as efforts by professional associations to address these issues.

Description: A flipped classroom moves the traditional lecture component of teaching outside of normal classroom time, so that lectures can be replaced with active learning activities during class time. In this talk, I first present a brief overview of flipped classrooms, with strategies for implementation and resources provided. Second, I will discuss the details of its application replacing two lectures in my third-year Life Contingencies course. Students’ responses to the technique are also provided in the form of data from anonymous post-activity surveys.

Description: The April/May 2013 edition of The Actuary magazine—the Society of Actuaries’ flagship publication.

Description: Actuarial systems access and change controls are hot topics these days as modeling continues to increase in complexity and as new modeling regulations may begin to crest over the horizon. Many companies are currently in the process of either formalizing their actuarial system access and change control protocols, or are reevaluating and strengthening their existing control processes in response to identified deficiencies or in conjunction with new actuarial system implementations. With these undertakings in mind, this article discusses a number of valuable components commonly incorporated in formal systems access and change control protocols. Also discussed are leading practices identified in the SOA publication “Actuarial Modeling Controls: A Survey of Actuarial Modeling Controls in the Context of a Model-Based Valuation Framework (December 2012)”, and from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Description: This article introduces IT DevOps to actuaries and how it is applicable to them to improve their modeling efforts and make them more efficient.