Description: In this article chairperson Anthony Dardis takes a look back at the achievements of the Investment Section Council halfway through his tenure as chair.

Description: The final actuarial work of the renowned Briton, Frank Redington. was a series of essays called “The Flock and the Sheep.” They were reviewed here some months ago by Kenneth Stewart. These articles describe what could be characterized as the problem of incidence of earnings on investments inequities. While equities produce the greatest returns over a long time, they tend to have lower returns than debt for the first years of the investment.

Description: In this article, the author recaps his experience at The 2009 Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting.

Description: The author makes 10 predictions of how risk management will change over the next decade.

Description: Businesses across the board have been drastically impacted by the effects of COVID-19 over the course of 2020, and insurance was not immune. Perhaps most relevant to this industry’s current capital and liquidity concern is the prevailing low interest rate environment. This has been a global trend in the last decade, and treasury rates in much of the developed world are at or near zero. Reduced investment returns limit an insurer’s ability to achieve their desired return on equity, eliminating previously profitable strategies that depended on the leverage of life and annuity balance sheets. Focus and activity have instead shifted to other methods to counteract the low interest rate markets and accompanying capital strain. Examples include increased mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity within the insurance industry and an increasing focus by private equity firms in the insurance market for asset-intensive products, both of which reflect the goal of increasing yield rates on capital.

Description: This article addresses the concern that while risk assessment models are supposed to help identify and reduce risk, they can be a source of risk themselves. A new report released by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries in August 2008 helps address that potential problem by providing useful guidance to actuaries who are charged with designing, implementing and using advanced models.

Description: This article discusses the new profession of financial engineering and the fit of actuaries in this profession.

Description: This article gives an overview and explanation of behavioral finance.

Description: Real estate practitioners are increasingly using “economic location,” rather than “geographic location,” as their primary analytic tool. That trend has gained substantial support among academics and practitioners who believe “economic location” is a more effective basis on which to build the analysis of risk in real estate portfolios.

Description: Discusses the evolution of the Valuation Actuaries Symposium since the 1980s.