Description: One of the most fundamental concepts in actuarial practice is the time value of money. For any work in which future cash flows are allowed for, such as reserving or pricing, it is natural to discount to present values so that an appropriate amount of money can be set aside today, allowing for future investment returns. This article discusses yield curve extrapolation methods along with the benefits and drawbacks of these methods.

Description: The actuarial profession is marching into the age of Big Data. Increasingly, employers in various actuarial fields are requiring new hires to have sophisticated knowledge in statistics and data science. To meet the new demands from the industry and the profession, one of the key additions to the SOA’s new curriculum is an exam in Statistics for Risk Modeling (SRM) which includes modern statistical and data science techniques. There is also a new proctored project on Predictive Analytics, as a capstone requirement following the completion of the SRM Exam. At the University of Toronto, we recently underwent a major actuarial science curriculum redesign, in order to stay current with new trends and demand from the profession and in line with the new professional curriculum.

Description: Writing articles is not as hard as most people think, but it does take some thought and planning. This article gives practical tips about how to put "pen to paper" and write an effective article.

Description: Traditionally the SOA formulates pedagogic excellence in terms of the Marzano Taxonomy. For example, the "analysis level" consisting of generalization, specification, classification, contrast, matching, and error identification, is considered superior to the "retrieval level" consisting of rote memorization such as recognition, recall, and using. In this presentation, we first show that pedagogic excellence can be equivalently, but more simply, formulated in terms of executive function and goal-setting. Here executive function refers to problems requiring multiple mental modalities - such as, formal, verbal, computational, and graphical - for their solution. Goal-setting refers to the skillful breakup of a complex problem into a sequence of subgoals each of which is clearly formulated, challenging, but achievable timely. Light examples from the literature illustrate these concepts. Five "challenging FM problems": reinvestment, refinancing, multiple rate/deposit problems, pricing deferred bonds using a term structure, and obscure loan problems, illustrate the following fundamental techniques of goal-setting and executive function: i) a fellowship approach to teaching preliminary exam material, ii) using subgoals to give difficult homework, iii) alternating between different mental modalities to achieve elegant brevity in solutions, iv) goal-setting reflecting familiar vs. new, and v) skillful definition of unit subgoals.

Description: One of the most fundamental concepts in actuarial practice is the time value of money. For any work in which future cash flows are allowed for, such as reserving or pricing, it is natural to discount to present values so that an appropriate amount of money can be set aside today, allowing for future investment returns. This article discusses yield curve extrapolation methods along with the benefits and drawbacks of these methods.

Description: A compilation of reader responses is presented to a real life situation posed involving a management, leadership, or other business decision. This issue’s case study involved a new employee being hired specifically for an expertise that then does not seem to be valued once they arrive.

Description: Email blast process and email preference setting description.

Description: In an effort to cultivate a more diverse profession and membership for their organizations, The Society of Actuaries (SOA) and the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS), through their Joint Committee for Inclusion, Equity and Diversity Charter (JCIED) have made a commitment to significantly increase their funding and support of the International Association of Black Actuaries (IABA) for the next three years (2019-2021).

Description: A compilation of reader responses is presented to a real life situation posed involving a management, leadership, or other business decision. This issue’s case study involved management hiring someone to make changes, then ignoring all suggestions.