Description: Often actuarial practitioners are faced with working with data that is less than ideal. The data may be observed with gaps in it, a model may suggest variables that are observed at different frequencies, and sometimes predictive analytic results are very fragile to the inclusion or omission of just a few observations in the sample. Data, particularly big data, are often "messy" and something must be done about it. What is the actuary to do about these very practical matters? These types of questions are what this presentation is intended to address. Concerns on missing data, outliers, nonlinearity, mixed-frequency, cross-correlations are illustrated using real datasets in the Asia-Pacific countries. Some possible solutions to the messy data problems will be discussed.

Description: Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are accelerating us into the fourth industrial revolution. In the next few years technological change and innovation will be rapid. The implications of AI on the actuarial profession are real and game changing. This session will help health actuaries understand what to expect from AI, how to begin using AI, and how AI will dramatically enhance the actuarial profession in the near future.

Description: This session will cover clustering techniques generally (k-means, hierarchical), and how k-means have been used to segment policyholders using third party features such as credit scores to assess customer profitability.

Description: This session will review limited fluctuation credibility, and how to apply that approach to a GLM. Alternative credibility approaches through the lens of ASOP 25 will also be discussed.

Description: Often actuarial practitioners are faced with working with data that is less than ideal. The data may be observed with gaps in it, a model may suggest variables that are observed at different frequencies, and sometimes predictive analytic results are very fragile to the inclusion or omission of just a few observations in the sample. Data, particularly big data, are often "messy" and something must be done about it. What is the actuary to do about these very practical matters? These types of questions are what this presentation is intended to address. Concerns on missing data, outliers, nonlinearity, mixed-frequency, cross-correlations are illustrated using real datasets in the Asia-Pacific countries. Some possible solutions to the messy data problems will be discussed.

Description: The presenters will share information about: -Insights into causes of death through the use of predictive models, based on a reinsured U.S. life portfolio, using logistic regression models to understand three main causes of death: cancer, heart and external causes; -Opioid abuse is a widespread phenomenon with drug-related mortality rates rising steeply in the U.S. over the past two decades. But what does the most recent data tell U.S. about the outlook for Opioid-related mortality?; -'Deaths of despair' have been publicized as a cause for the poor performance of U.S. mortality in recent years. The presenters will be looking at the different causes under this label, their evolution and explore the drivers behind them.

Description: The advent of machine learning algorithms has taken predictive analytics and risk scoring to a new level. From gradient boosting machines to k-nearest neighbors regression, the use of these techniques has gained significant traction in healthcare - including health systems like the Cleveland Clinic. This session will discuss the use of predictive analytics to go beyond just assessing the risk of a patient, and instead focus on prescribing a specific intervention of care. In practice, the recommendation of a care plan goes beyond just attributing a score to a patient. It provides physicians and care coordinators the most probabilistic options - e.g. referral to social worker, depression screening, weight-loss program - for positively impacting a patient's future healthcare outcome.

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: Data science and predictive analytics are rapidly growing fields and the tools are evolving at a formidable pace. The actuary who wants to be most effective will most likely have to learn at least the basics of more than one programming language, such as R, Python, or Julia, depending on the problem at hand. The Jupyter Notebook App allows you to create interactive notebook documents that are relatively language agnostic, so you only need to learn a single integrated development environment. More importantly, Jupyter Notebooks allows you to easily combine input (code), output (including visualizations), and documentation in a single, shareable, document. Learn how to make better use of your time with these very useful notebooks. This demonstration-based talk will also cover JupyterLab, the next generation of notebooks.

Description: You’ve built or updated a predictive model. Is it any good? How can you interpret and understand its predictions? How does it compare to alternative models? This session will look at traditional and non-traditional ways of validating predictive models, with examples from case studies.