Description: Article from Risk Management Newsletter, March 2006, No. 7, discusses the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO). Actuaries like to think of COSO as a euphemism for accountants taking over the world, especially in view of its sponsorship. The COSO has as its primary goal the improvement of corporate financial reporting, which makes it a stronghold in the emerging practice of Enterprise Risk Management.

Description: A review of the academic article "Health Insurance for ‘Humans’: Information Frictions, Plan Choice, and Consumer Welfare."

Description: Article from Risk Management Newsletter, July 2005, Issue 5 that highlights a new frontier for actuaries unfolding in the insurance industry called Enterprise Risk Management.

Description: Full version of Risk Management, July 2005, Issue No. 5.

Description: Full version of Risk Management, March 2006, Issue No. 7.

Description: This session is a primer on how to apply Gestalt psychology to display quantitative information to improve neural receptiveness. While much of brain functioning is still a mystery to psychologists and neuroscientists, we do understand a great deal about which parts of the brain engage or disengage given visual cues. Actuaries are often tasked with presenting very technical information and are prone to focus more on the substance of numerical data rather than a pictorial presentation based on neural preferences. This presentation will discuss how to display quantitative information more effectively tailored to these preferences.

Description: Actuarial tools now include both open and closed source software; both need a strong model governance framework to mitigate potential sources of model risk and external threats. This presentation will discuss how to develop, install and monitor a model governance framework to safeguard company modeling assets and intellectual capital.

Description: The Delphi method is a non-quantitative forecasting approach that is most useful when other forecasting techniques appear to have limited value. The Society of Actuaries (SOA) has had some impressive results from Delphi studies (even quoted in the Wall Street Journal for their uncanny accuracy on long-range predictions). Attend this session to learn about this effective, yet underutilized method of leveraging the wisdom of crowds.

Description: Process of building a predictive model and related considerations.

Description: This is authors' Fellowship Credit Research Paper. This paper will develop a model for cash flow testing traditional participating insurance that utilizes pricing tools and assumptions to project reserve liabilities. The model makes use of finance and accounting tools to monitor the reasonableness of ending and intermediate surplus results that emerge under the various interest rate scenarios imposed.