Description: Session 9B: Actuaries and Technology: Perspectives on Actuarial Workflow Automation The life insurance industry has experienced unprecedented growth in modernization efforts, with special attention paid to automating actuarial workflows. Companies are creating processes that are more scalable and maintainable, helping actuaries meet strict deadlines and deliver meaningful information to stakeholders. Discuss practical examples of automation, potential compositions of the modern actuarial toolkit, and different ways actuaries and technology teams interact during implementation and production states. Examine how automation can help actuarial teams shift from a quarterly to a monthly valuation process by overcoming challenges in traditional actuarial processes-long run times, the need for highly specialized legacy software skills, and inadequate control. Shifting to a monthly schedule can increase alignment on company objectives, deepen insurers' understanding of their business, and improve strategic decision-making. Leave with new ways of thinking about technology, from day-to-day best practices to full-scale actuarial transformation. By attending the session, you will: - Explain and understand the benefits of automating actuarial workflows with the purpose of operating on a monthly, rather than quarterly basis. - Describe the categories and purposes of several kinds of automation and supporting tools that might be used to accomplish this. - Understand different actuarial IT operating models and consider the application of such strategies at your organization. - Identify best practices for implementing automation based on the presented case studies.

Description: Health Insurers commonly face challenges regarding data including: Limited knowledge of how to handle large datasets Lack of a common language to discuss data challenge Limited understanding of how to use data and analytics to inform and facilitate decision-making We are seeing a turn in the market to use data and analytics to cultivate an insights-driven culture. But we are noticing a disconnect between the actuaries that are able to glean these insights and the new technologies required to handle the amount of data available to them. During this session you will look at moving from MS Excel to more advanced data handling and modeling tools (e.g., Alteryx), visualization tools (e.g., Power BI & Tableau) and expanding utilization of these tools and analytics. By attending this session, you will: • Understand data and analytics (D&A) concepts, methods, and fundamentals to help drive value. • Gain an appreciation for data privacy, protection protocols, and related ethical considerations when working with data. • Be able to identify of how to use data and analytics to inform and facilitate decision-making.

Description: Last year, the COVID pandemic significantly increased the pace of change in the life insurance industry, particularly in Accelerated Underwriting (AU). In the past, underwriting process changes occurred relatively infrequently and over a matter of years. Now, with new data sources and predictive models constantly evolving, the frequency of underwriting enhancements and decisioning changes, particularly in AU programs, is occurring every few months. With so much change occurring quickly, how can a company effectively monitor and understand the effects of these changes to make continuous adjustments with confidence and agility? Well-designed data visualizations allow a reviewer to navigate and comprehend detailed results quickly because our brains can process data in a picture format more than 15 times faster than text. Today’s advanced BI tools can make AU program monitoring more efficient and help companies adjust quickly to the results from program changes.

Description: Learn how modernization of data, models, and technology are influencing workflows. This webcast will address how workflows are changing in response to new regulatory requirements and the impacts the changes have on modeling and end-to-end future state operating models. Industry leading actuaries will discuss: How team collaboration can increase quality and speed of reporting to internal and external stakeholders How to strengthen controls and compliance frameworks across finance and actuarial departments How to modernize actuarial input/output for strategic analysis and insights How to attract and retain top talent by improving opportunities for actuaries There will also be dedicated time to ask questions of those who have made the transition.

Description: Is your development team or IT staff growing tired of last-minute requests to include additional functionality? Have you strained to explain challenging actuarial topics to non-actuarial staff for implementation? Do your teams find themselves revisiting deadlines & timelines when building solutions? During this interactive panel discussion, three technologists (two software engineering managers and one data scientist) along with three actuaries will discuss real world problems and approaches using experience from previous projects. Although the challenge of running efficient software teams is not unique to actuarial science, this webcast will discuss best practices on how to organize teams to reduce friction and context switching. Presenters will also explore unique actuarial challenges and concepts including how to address standards on data quality when building software, how to build intuitive software that meets actuarial standards and how test-driven development makes it easier to meet actuarial standards of practice.

Description: Data visualization is a hot topic within the industry. This session will showcase business use cases of data visualization models to build, for example, a claims trend story from outlier analysis to root cause in real time. There are many different ways to assemble pie, bar, or other types of charts, but critically understanding the business questions and following visualization best practices can accelerate the pace of identification to actionable result. Additionally, moving up the analysis continuum from busy Excel files with thousands of numbers to automated Tableau dashboards highlighting only the most impactful numbers with full drill-in capabilities improves both efficiency and communication to non-technical audiences.

Description: Level funded products often target the small group market (2-50) and can result in many manual and tedious processes for underwriting to perform risk assessment. Learn how a carrier used technology to help automate risk assessment without the need for paper medical questionnaires, and exposed a risk engine for broker quoting to enable near real-time of pricing for risk-based products. The approach reduced labor and allowed underwriting to focus solely on fallout cases while also improving pricing consistency. Discuss broader trends in the health market for risk assessment, including new machine learning cost predictions that can be used for automation and better predictions of future costs. Discussion topics will include underwriting guidelines, business rules, risk scores, and machine learning. By attending this session, you will have a better idea of new trends in risk assessment for small groups where no claims experience is available. And, better understand business rules that are common in underwriting for flags for review as well as how risk scores and machine learning can be used during the underwriting process.

Description: As technology continues to improve, the actuarial profession is challenged by the tremendous potential benefits of new technology and the concurrent creation of new risks that accompany it. Technology should enable good work products that meet strict deadlines, deliver meaningful information to regulators and shareholders, and inform management teams about opportunities to develop our businesses. Answering questions about what technology we might use and how it can aid in making the best investment in our operations is key to making value proposition arguments to support the adoption of new technology in the workplace. Learn practical examples of automation as it's applied in actuarial practice, a potential composition of the actuarial toolkit and the business of managing the use of automation. Advance the state of your workplace art through several angles of this topic as: - Categories and purposes of several kinds of automation and supporting tools that might be used in actuarial practice - How management messaging and culture affects the way automation tools are used and how technical risks are managed - Implementing automation based on the presented case studies

Description: This session series is sponsored by Zelis Claim analytics produces valuable insights about provider cost, quality, and referral patterns. Provider networks can be created around high-value providers to improve clinical outcomes while lowering the cost of care. Programs to improve provider performance and/or incentivize members to choose high-value providers exist, but how do you bring all of this together to achieve desired outcomes? Join us to learn how to leverage provider level analytics to build and optimize a network with high-value providers at the center. Analyze the network for competitiveness and adequacy and demonstrate progress toward network cost saving goals to key stakeholders by modeling claim data for a member population. Finally, ensure the success of your network through an incentive program that shifts utilization to those high performing providers. By attending this session, you will be able to: - Build a realistic provider network with high-value providers at the center. - Evaluate the overall financial impact of network build and optimization efforts. - Learn about an innovative member incentive program.

Description: This session series is sponsored by Zelis Shifting utilization of health services to efficient and high-value providers presents an opportunity to reduce harmful cascades of wasteful spending, ultimately freeing up funds for additional high-value services that will improve quality and member satisfaction. Identifying the right providers to put at the center of networks is challenging for any health care organization. How can you objectively determine which providers are delivering the greatest value when compared to their peers? And once those providers are identified, what’s next? Join Zelis and their partner HealthCorum to review a case study on a shared services organization where they leveraged statewide multi-payer claims data to produce provider level analytics, allowing for transparency into provider practice patterns at a granular level. By attending this session, you will be able to: - Create a fair methodology to benchmark providers. - Develop metrics and scores to identify high-value providers. - Produce actionable data to be used for network optimization strategies.