Description: Python has become the fastest-growing major programming language in the world. It has surged in popularity over the last decade, following the development of its industry-leading capabilities in data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and it is now one of the most globally popular and widely used languages. In this article, I discuss some of the reasons for its popularity and explain why many actuaries and insurers have started using Python.

Description: Life and annuity markets around the world have seen increasingly complex investment-combined products, including universal life, fixed indexed annuities, variable annuities with a wide variety of guaranteed benefits and indexed variable annuities. Insurance companies are facing unprecedented exposure to financial risks in addition to traditional mortality and longevity risks. The risk assessment and modeling for such complex designs by conventional methods often focus heavily on their market competitiveness and profitability. However, there seems to be a lack of quantifiable and systematic approaches to assess investment risks associated with investment combined products. The objective of the proposed work is to develop a framework for quantifying and analyzing various forms of contractual designs and showcase different techniques to assess the trade-off between competitive contractual designs and their practical implications regarding the difficulty of risk management.

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: A discussion with an experienced actuarial manager on how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted people management and what we can learn and apply in the actuarial profession going forward.

Description: This article provides an overview and highlights of the recent paper Pension Risk Transfer: Evaluating Impact and Barriers for De-Risking Strategies. The market has evolved dramatically over the past 10 years, and the paper discusses the drivers behind these changes from both the plan sponsor and insurer viewpoints. The research also gathered input from various key stakeholders as to what changes the market could experience in the future.

Description: An overview of bias and fairness in machine learning models, as they apply to use cases in life insurance.

Description: A brief description of the contents of the July 2022 issue along with are quest for assistance with SOA programming.

Description: Brief discussion on recent published experience studies and RFPs.

Description: Emerging technologies like GenAI will be more disruptive than past technological developments, such as spreadsheets, low-code data and dashboarding tools, and cloud computing. This article will explore how how we can lead ourselves, our teams, and our organizations to thrive within a defined modern value proposition, using one of two archetype roles: actuaries as business partners or actuaries as developers.

Description: As the population and workforce age, it is important to rethink how and when we retire. This article provides a big picture overview of issues related to opening up more options for exit from the labor force and gradual retirement. It reviews developments in the last few years that are important including the growth of gig employment, more remote work, more technology, workforce shortages, and changes in employee benefits that previously were a barrier to gradual retirement. It calls for more focus on adaption to the aging society. Several publications are cited and it includes a reference list.