Description: Contemporary ERM has moved from an event-based view of risk to a hierarchical, systems-based approach. In order to operationalize such an approach, a methodology is proposed in this paper that draws on phylogenetic approaches that have been successfully developed for biological evolution. The technique and process provide an insight into the lineage, pace and impact of external conditions on the evolution of risks. They also provide a unique and rational classification of risk in an enterprise that can be used to optimize risk management resources. An example of a fictitious insurance company is used to illustrate the approach. Presented at 2010 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Society of Actuaries, April 12-15, 2010.

Description: A new reason for the inherent instability of the insurance business can be found in the literature of anthropology. The theory of plural rationalities, also known as Cultural Theory of Risk or simply Cultural Theory, posits that the world is populated by people with four fundamentally different attitudes toward risk. Presented at 2010 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium, Society of Actuaries, April 12-15, 2010.

Description: The article describes the sessions at the upcoming annual meeting.

Description: Actuarial literature in the twenty-five years includes discussions of a well known inequality. Among the recent papers on various aspects of this classic result are those by Berin 1970, Olson 1975 and Sarason 1960. A standard method for achieving this inequality uses Jensen's inequality. This is the method used by Bowers, et al 1983. We will also employ this method in an attempt to learn about it.

Description: This is a study on the Nesbitt formula and the variants to this formula.

Description: This paper represents a brief progress report on research, being sponsored by the Casualty Actuarial Society CAS and the Society of Actuaries SOA, in the area of modeling of economic series. In particular, research is being undertaken to provide a foundation for the actuarial community’s modeling of a variety of economic variables, including interest rates, equity returns, inflation, unemployment rates, and real estate price levels. The specific objectives of this research are to provide a summary of the literature in the area of economic scenario modeling, identify data sources and methodologies in this area useful to the actuarial profession, and produce working software for economic modeling, including appropriate documentation, to be made available to the general actuarial community in order to allow actuaries to use and build upon this research.

Description: It has been twenty years since DeWit 1982 first applied fuzzy logic FL to insurance. That article sought to quantify the fuzziness in underwriting. Since then, the universe of discourse has expanded considerably and now the FL methodologies include used fuzzy set theory, fuzzy numbers and fuzzy arithmetic, fuzzy inference systems, fuzzy clustering algorithms, fuzzy linear programming, fuzzy regression, and hybrids involving other soft computing technologies. This article presents an overview of these studies.

Description: Presentation of proposals that are designed to further improve actuarial education by anticipating educational needs based on future change in the nature of actuarial work. The paper is divided into three sections: I. Current and Past Education of Actuaries II. Actuaries as Customers for Education and III. The Future Educational Needs of Actuaries and How These Needs Might Be Implemented. Followed by several submitted discussion papers.

Description: This note is labeled actuarial because it deals extensively with the force of interest, a concept which is characteristically of concern to the actuarial community. The authors’ personal point of view is that we should modify the basic definition of the compound interest.