Description: To help familiarize actuaries in industry with statistical methods for imputing or modeling race and ethnicity in the U.S., the Institute’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategic Research Program is seeking a researcher to outline the various methods, including their strengths and weaknesses. The project intent is a methodology review rather than original thinking. The review should assume that the user will be working with structured datasets in an insurance context, for example, data associated with an in-force life or health insurance product.

Description: This section presents book reviews and summaries of recent publications on a variety of topics.

Description: Risk adjustment in government regulated health plans has been around for over two decades. Yet the strategies for promoting risk score accuracy haven't varied much during that time. Most health plans, physician groups, and vendors promote chart reviews and/or in-home assessments as the primary vehicle for collecting data not perceived to be present in the routine claims submission and adjudication stream. We know that most organizations trying to coalesce encounter data from multiple sources often fail to ensure that all relevant data is ultimately submitted to CMS or a state Medicaid agency. Crucial data, often with significant financial value, frequently gets lost in the data pipeline, somewhere between the provider's billing system and the health plan and/or its vendors. Because 837-formatted data is difficult to read, it complicates payers and vendor’s abilities to track encounter data so that every service delivered to patients is credited to the applicable risk adjustment formula. It is incumbent upon successful risk-adjusted entities to be able to track encounter data, identify processes and/or vendors which may be mangling or losing data, in order to ensure that risk scores are sufficiently accurate to be compliant with plan sponsor requirements and to ensure appropriate revenue to the health plan or provider group.

Description: Read how the world’s largest provider of specialty insurance for classic vehicles uses its media department’s YouTube videos to its full advantage.

Description: To expand our understanding of the theory of behavioral economics and its application to life and health insurance policyholder and annuitant behavior, the Society of Actuaries' Committee on Knowledge Extension Research, Committee on Life Insurance Research and the Financial Reporting Section issued a call for papers, inviting actuaries, academics, economists, psychologists, sociologists, researchers and other professionals to explore this topic from a variety of perspectives.

Description: This article discusses the emergence of multi-processor computers and the importance of acquiring parallel computing skills.

Description: This session discussed three dramatic shifts in everyday economic relationships: 1 From matter to information, 2 From firms to individuals, and 3 From sellers to buyers. The instructor discussed application service providers and their impact on the economy and the Internet.

Description: This second session in the series examines responses to the changing workplace landscape from outside the insurance industry. Using a question-and-answer approach with our panelists, this session focuses on practical approaches to identifying new opportunities, and ways in which traditional products and sales channels are changing to meet emerging needs. Compared with other vertical financial services, the life insurance industry has a very low level of 'touch' with its customers. Communication with customers is often limited to the annual mailing of premium invoices. Wellness platforms offer life insurers a means to increase customer engagement, building stronger brand affinity and improving persistency. Life insurers can also leverage customer data collected through the wellness platform to streamline the underwriting process for cross-sales, increasing volume and efficiency.

Description: Learn more about the predictive modeling that was applied to industry data for the lapse and mortality experience in the post-level term period. Novel approaches were taken to model the shock lapse, subsequent lapse, and mortality experience. Observe a demonstration of the Tableau tool, which was built to allow users to analyze data on their own.

Description: An overview of the basic tooling and packages available for the Julia programming language, with a focus on why this is of interest to the actuarial profession. It covers some of the built-in language features as well parts of the Julia package ecosystem that make Julia ideal for modeling and data analysis. This is the second installment in a series of article aimed at actuaries. The first installment, Julia for Actuaries, was published in the October 2020 edition of Actuarial Technology Today, and covered the base language itself, its high-level, math-friendly syntax, and why the actuary of the future should consider its adoption.