Description: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been our chosen metric for growth since the Great Depression, but expectations are for lower GDP growth going forward than we are accustomed to. Its two components, population and productivity, face headwinds—population from a declining birth rate and longevity, and productivity from increased climate events, energy costs, global conflict and raw materials shortages. Comparing demographic results from the U.S., China and Nigeria, representing countries with varying population growth rates, illustrates the potential economic growth issues of aging populations and high dependency ratios. The demographic challenges can be turned into opportunities to broaden prosperity; productivity can be improved by providing a level playing field and helping those in the lowest socioeconomic classes find opportunities. These topics and more will be discussed and enhance foresight about them.

Description: Learn about prevalence-induced concept change and other cognitive biases. And find out how such biases can be linked to common actuarial practices (e.g., the application of the bias to stringency of enterprise risk management frameworks, in the case of prevalence-induced concept change). You should leave the session with the ability to understand how these biases could affect your work.

Description: Description of the mathematics involved when looking at low probability events within a company from the perspective of the C-Suite. The accumulation of small probability events leads to a much higher probability of at least one of them happening in a given period.

Description: The mismatch between how interest rate impacts the value of assets and liabilities could have material negative impact to companies’ earnings and surplus. To quantify and mitigate the impact of such mismatches, companies have used matching a combination of duration and convexity. I will review these measurement techniques and their limitations.

Description: Examine how investment portfolios have been changing over recent years with a panel of industry experts from the life insurance industry, and learn what lies ahead. This will be a highly practical session, with real-life case studies referenced as much as possible.

Description: Observe how design thinking can be used to address emerging uncertainty in insurance. (Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test.) According to Fostering Innovation: A Guide for the Actuarial Profession, there is a need for more innovation in the actuarial profession. “A benefit of working in large, well-established organizations is that these workplaces have many problems to solve, but offer many resources, as well as a network of people for collaboration. However, it is interesting to note that the stability and predictability of cyclic work may also be seen as a negative by workplace employees, especially concerning creativity and innovation.

Description: Risk management techniques do not include system science. System science requires that the uncertainty of the world is incorporated into the results. The articles explains the difference between risk and uncertainty. Learn how risk practices create an overoptimistic view of future outcomes.

Description: "Most patients enter the health care system through their primary care provider or through the Emergency Room or an Urgent Care Center. How an emergency room is structured, managed, and provides care is one of the major forces impacting the total cost of care. Yet it is often an after-thought and ignored by both health plans and health systems. In reality, the structured introduction of efficient practices can substantially reduce the quantity and cost of health care services. Further explore useful information to better understand and see how there are still substantial opportunities for improvement."

Description: Review the Bermuda Monetary Authority's Consultation Paper I and focus on required changes to governance, risk management, modeling, lapse risk, filing requirements, model governance and more.

Description: To provide high level information on a book selected and discussed during the December book club session, The Ten Commandments of Risk Leadership. In addition, this article serves as a promotion of the SOA book club as well as the upcoming sessions.