Description: The cloud inspires awe and fear in equal parts these days. There is a need to learn more, but there’s much information to learn and it may be difficult to know what to learn next. In this session, we’ll carve off a small corner of the cloud and make it your own. Setting up a Data Science Virtual Machine on Digital Ocean will be demonstrated. It’s the fastest way to get a data science development environment setup for your own use. Many of the topics and ideas covered will apply to almost all other cloud offerings. What use cases Digital Ocean is good for, and what use cases you should look elsewhere for, will also be discussed.

Description: Technology is transforming the retirement space and more changes are expected in the future. Join a panel of experts to discuss what are the opportunities, trends and challenges associated with new technologies in the retirement landscape and how it is expected to impact consumers, if we can enable their successful integration.

Description: This second session in the series examines responses to the changing workplace landscape from outside the insurance industry. Using a question-and-answer approach with our panelists, this session focuses on practical approaches to identifying new opportunities, and ways in which traditional products and sales channels are changing to meet emerging needs. Compared with other vertical financial services, the life insurance industry has a very low level of 'touch' with its customers. Communication with customers is often limited to the annual mailing of premium invoices. Wellness platforms offer life insurers a means to increase customer engagement, building stronger brand affinity and improving persistency. Life insurers can also leverage customer data collected through the wellness platform to streamline the underwriting process for cross-sales, increasing volume and efficiency.

Description: Telehealth enables the delivery of health care services to patients that are not in the same location as providers. Over the past decade, telehealth has been used increasingly to complement face-to-face patient encounters, and is particularly important to addressing health care needs in rural areas. Recent regulatory catalysts, particularly in the Medicare Advantage program, have served to elevate the visibility and importance of telehealth in the overall health care delivery system. Starting in 2020, Medicare Advantage plans can offer any clinically appropriate physician services through telehealth as part of the standard Medicare benefit. Network adequacy standards can also be met via telehealth providers under certain programs. This presentation will cover the basics of what constitutes telehealth, and provide tangible demonstrations of telehealth technology (simulating variations mediums through which services are delivered). We will cover the what, the why, and the where (anywhere) of telehealth in 2020.

Description: FASB has provided broad guidance for application of long-duration targeted improvements (LDTI) in Actuarial Standards Update 2018-12 for U.S GAAP financial reporting. However, the broad guidance provided leads to several interpretations and technology, data and system implementation challenges. During this session, the presenters will focus on sharing the technology, system and data challenges and insights gathered from their FASB LDTI implementation journey, including lessons learned from collaboration with other discipline areas and stakeholders such as finance, investment and IT. The presenters will also discuss methods to overcome challenges and go beyond compliance.

Description: The session will feature case study discussion of how insurers can improve their model architecture and data visualization to prepare for the increasing demands of the future. Actuarial data and analysis has long been limited by the complexity and diversity of historical systems. External pressure on insurers is higher than ever before, as new requirements take effect under PBR, GAAP Targeted Improvements, and IFRS17.

Description: The insurance industry is in a constant state of transformation. As organizations adapt to the effects of COVID-19, undergo modernization efforts and implement new technologies, soft or “human” skills are becoming key differentiators for success. Skills such as communication, empathy, storytelling, leadership, problem-solving and more are separating the good from the great actuaries. Those who possess these skillsets can better translate data and most efficiently leverage systems and teams. At the same time, by taking a human approach to modernization efforts, leaders will be able to best engage and motivate their workforces, while building teams that will excel in the future of work.

Description: The actuarial profession is at a tipping point and a combination of disruptive technologies and external pressures are creating a unique opportunity to move from results producer to insightful adviser. For a prudent but forward-looking professional, this is exciting and scary in equal measure. The ability to process large masses of business data to make more accurate calculations has become one of the most sought-after skills for leaders across all industries, including insurance.<br><br>The presenters will introduce current data technologies used to manage, process and visualize data. They will cover solutions like Microsoft BI, Tableau, Amazon Redshift, Hadoop, Alteryx, Python, etc. and their applications in data, process improvement, automation, reporting and predictive analytics. In particular, they will explore management reporting and how it leverages data analytics to help business leaders with strategic decisions making, how to evaluate the effectiveness of management reporting structures, drivers of change and ways to improve them, and proposed steps toward entrenching this dynamic and insightful approach to management reporting in which insurance leaders can have confidence.

Description: Ever wanted to do a Kaggle data science competition, but didn't know where to start? This presentation meets the needs of actuaries interested in predictive analytics and competitive data science. The presentation will describe the nature of competitive data science, and provide insights into lessons learned by competing in the Airbus Ship Detection Challenge at Kaggle, as well as other Kaggle competitions. The presenters will provide an introduction to neural networks and describe the nature of the Airbus Ship Detection Challenge and other Kaggle competitions, plus a solution approaches that can be used to obtain top scores using Convolutional Neural networks (CNNs), random forests and boosted trees.

Description: The SOA launched the Actuarial Innovation &amp; Technology Strategic Research Program earlier this year, focusing on projects in which technology is being used in actuarial work. The presenters will highlight reports from the program including a review of the Top Actuarial Technologies of 2019, the growing use of cloud computing and its impact on furthering and deepening actuarial analyses, and the growing innovative approaches using non-traditional data sources for risk selection and segmentation and its intersection with industry regulation. An overview of this new SOA research initiative and key findings from recently released reports will be covered.