Description: A review of the Johns Hopkins Data Science Specialization courses with special emphasis on how they may be useful to actuaries.

Description: An autobiographical journey from actuarial student to data scientist.

Description: Article describing content and key takeaways from experience completing the SOA PA Certificate

Description: Discover the key components of value-based care (VBC) contracts and their impact on provider credibility. Learn about benchmarks, measurement period results, and the unique challenges providers face in managing insurance risk. Gain insights into reducing costs and aligning financial incentives in the US healthcare market.

Description: This article will highlight new model visualization approaches we use to shed light on the “black-box” nature of advanced modeling techniques. These visualizations help us better highlight and understand the key drivers of predictions so that they can be understood and validated by all stakeholders

Description: The session will highlight trends in recent industry mortality and lapse studies that have been conducted, including areas where individual companies typically have limited data. The sources of data feature SOA studies as well as other industry studies conducted by consultants and/or reinsurers. Gain an understanding of current drivers of mortality and lapse experience for life insurance evidenced in industry studies, and an understanding of available data to supplement experience in areas where you may have limited internal experience.

Description: As insurers search for ways to optimize the value of their actuaries, cloud-based data architecture has emerged as a leading solution to deliver quality data that enables the unlocking of actuarial potential. Hear an introduction to cloud based data architecture, explore cloud-based data strategies and view a live demo. Learn about different data “zones”, piping data between the zones, transforming data, and a collection of cloud-based tools that could be used for each one of these steps.

Description: Term products exhibit a wide range of behavior as policyholders can elect different term periods and conversion options. While term products have been around for decades, it's only recently that longer level term products are reaching the end of the level term period. Term conversions have historically been an afterthought and are rarely modeled. Discuss the use of predictive modeling techniques such as LASSO regression and cross-validation to build models for level term lapses and post-level term shock lapses, as well as the extrapolation of experience for shorter term products to longer term products (e.g., extrapolating 20-year term experience and applying to 30-year term). Explore the use of traditional techniques to develop term conversion rates and a framework for modeling the assumption. Challenges and limitations of setting lapse and conversion rates will be discussed. By attending the session, you will: - Understand the complexities of term policyholder behavior. - Understand the challenges in developing and implementing assumptions for lapses and conversions. - Understand the application of traditional and predictive modeling techniques for term policyholder behavior.

Description: Insurance carriers today must balance a multitude of factors to remain relevant and innovate- -process improvements and efficiency (automated or traditional); -customer experience (less intrusive, more data); -distribution (aging traditional, product focus, emerging opportunities); and -mortality. While these factors are not new, true innovation in these areas require a convergence of engagement among actuaries, underwriters and data scientists to determine the specific pain points and appreciate both the benefits and consequences of various paths. Explore examples of how best to approach these topics, engage different disciplines, avoid pitfalls and ensure a holistic view. Real life examples and lessons learned will be shared during this session.