Description: Recently, actuaries have become more involved in formulary decisions due to high and variable pharmacy cost and utilization trends. How can actuaries and pharmaceutical manufacturers work together to better predict the market while covering key drugs? What discussions are currently taking place between manufacturers and payers? Is there value in these discussions that actuaries are missing? This presentation will provide both actuarial and manufacturer perspectives in order to create a mutual understanding that will begin to direct future conversations to benefit both stakeholders.

Description: Actuaries play pivotal roles in insurance companies, consulting firms, and throughout the industry. With the ongoing accounting and regulatory changes, process and system modernization, and the rapidly changing environment, actuaries frequently find themselves working in multidisciplinary projects with non-actuarial teams. In order to take on broader leadership roles, actuaries are often times expected to partner with and/or lead non-actuarial personnel. How can actuaries work most effectively with non-actuaries? A panel of industry leaders across different disciplines will share their perspectives on actuaries working with and building effective relationships with non-actuarial colleagues. The panelists will cover how actuaries add value in a non-actuarial world, what aspects actuaries can focus on to be more effective across disciplines, and incorporate success stories as well as lessons learned.

Description: This session will explain how, by applying his or her educational background and business experience, an actuary can quickly learn the basics of data science and perform the important modeling work of insurance.

Description: James Glickman delivers his general session speech at the SOA 2019 SOA Annual Meeting & Exhibit in Toronto.

Description: What is the future of the Actuarial Profession and the Insurance Industry? Is it possible that the Actuarial Profession will become more empowered by adopting emerging technologies?

Description: The Shiny web application framework by RStudio has become a popular way for data scientists working in R to create interactive data analytics. When the developer is ready to share their application with others, internally or externally, there are a number alternatives and factors to consider. This talk presents the main Shiny application hosting alternatives and considers their advantages and disadvantages. In addition, the steps necessary to deploy an application on Shiny Server, both on-prem and in the cloud using Microsoft Azure as an example, are described.

Description: Andy Rallis delivers his speech at the presidential luncheon of the SOA 2019 SOA Annual Meeting & Exhibit in Toronto.

Description: Transitioning from college life to actuarial practice can be intimidating for students. Even after almost four years of studying actuarial science, many still wonder “what does an actuary do all day?” Our capstone course, Actuarial Applications in Practice, is designed to bridge the gap by exposing students to projects similar to what they might encounter in their first years in the industry, including how to present their results in both written and oral presentation formats. The course also incorporates Ethics and Professionalism topics to give them the tools they need to make sure the job is done right.

Description: The implementation and execution of IFRS17 requires the insurance industry to re-define the skill set matrix of Actuary, Accountant and IT practitioner. Professionals with the ability to, 1. understand the business context of IFRS17, 2. gain insight from complex actuarial & accounting & data system 3. communicate technical content in a compelling way, will be the key players of the future Finance function of the insurance industry. They will also become the foundation of the new formations of IFRS17 delivery team containing hybrid or cross functional capabilities. This presentation will discuss: 1. the new skills, ranging from account posting to data governing, required by actuaries to stay relevant in a digitalized Finance function under the IFRS17 world 2. the actuarial related roles available within an E2E IFRS17 reporting process 3. the potential formation of the IFRS17 reporting team