Description: Innovation in technology is being leveraged throughout the entire customer journey. The presenters will focus on solutions that affect both the client experience, the productivity of the agent and the efficiency of the life company. Some InsurTech companies that have developed solutions across the value chain - beginning with front-end solutions to improve the productivity and expertise of agents. These include cloud-based product illustration, advanced sales concept systems, financial calculators, e-applications and e-signature technology. Solutions that improve the efficiency of policy underwriting and issue include automated underwriting systems, expert requirement systems and underwriter workbenches. Finally, solutions that automate inforce policy management and compliance include anti-money laundering AI systems, in-force illustration systems to satisfy annual statement compliance and claims processing systems. There is a race to gain competitive advantage by getting to a digitally transformed future first.

Description: Learn how modernization of data, models, and technology are influencing workflows. This webcast will address how workflows are changing in response to new regulatory requirements and the impacts the changes have on modeling and end-to-end future state operating models. Industry leading actuaries will discuss: How team collaboration can increase quality and speed of reporting to internal and external stakeholders How to strengthen controls and compliance frameworks across finance and actuarial departments How to modernize actuarial input/output for strategic analysis and insights How to attract and retain top talent by improving opportunities for actuaries There will also be dedicated time to ask questions of those who have made the transition.

Description: Is your development team or IT staff growing tired of last-minute requests to include additional functionality? Have you strained to explain challenging actuarial topics to non-actuarial staff for implementation? Do your teams find themselves revisiting deadlines & timelines when building solutions? During this interactive panel discussion, three technologists (two software engineering managers and one data scientist) along with three actuaries will discuss real world problems and approaches using experience from previous projects. Although the challenge of running efficient software teams is not unique to actuarial science, this webcast will discuss best practices on how to organize teams to reduce friction and context switching. Presenters will also explore unique actuarial challenges and concepts including how to address standards on data quality when building software, how to build intuitive software that meets actuarial standards and how test-driven development makes it easier to meet actuarial standards of practice.

Description: Hop into a panel discussion between InsurTech Advisory Council and a startup, followed by a demo of life event prediction and analyses with multiple applications across financial services. You will also learn about: the SOA office hours program and member participation, the startup ecosystem filled with incubators, company contests, opportunities and outcomes, how to build a data set providing additional insights for customization and enhanced user experience, and - actuaries' engagement with startup strategic advisory boards.

Description: To understand the relationship between lifestyle behaviors and mortality, RGA investigated a national, health-related, mortality-linked data set provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). RGA Strategic Research Actuary Julianne Callaway discusses the company's findings.

Description: Leveraging the research papers "Emerging Technologies and their Impact on Actuarial Science and Top Actuarial Technologies," the presenters of this session will highlight current and emerging actuarial technology trends, discuss how these trends will impact the day-to-day work of actuaries, and explain what actuaries can do to adapt.

Description: This article, directed at actuaries, will explain the basics of blockchain in very simple terms and we will then examine some UK/European-based use cases where blockchain is already being used or developed.

Description: The journey for microinsurance, nowadays called inclusive insurance, started a long time ago and is not complete in the majority of the low-income and low middle-income markets. When seeking to enhance inclusive insurance markets, it is useful and necessary to have a good understanding because it entails a different treatment of customers, distribution, products, pricing, client management, premium collection, claims declaration and settlement, and reporting.

Description: As an undergrad student, I discussed about my understanding of how AI is going to influence insurance industry through my volunteer experience with the SOA Actuarial Innovation and Technology Repository.

Description: Letter from the editor, outlining the theme and providing a brief description of each article within this edition of NewsDirect.