Description: The editorial board of the North American Actuarial Journal (NAAJ) announces the recipient of the NAAJ Annual Prize for the best paper published in 2023, “The Economic Impact of Extreme Cyber Risk Scenarios,” coauthored by Martin Eling, Mauro Elvedi, and Dr. Greg Falco. The NAAJ is the scholarly journal of the Society of Actuaries (SOA).

Description: This article is the final installment of our three-part series on economic scenario generators (“ESGs”). Part I and II were published in the November 2019 and August 2020 issues of The Modeling Platform. Part III contextualizes the framework for selecting, building, and validating ESGs and focuses on the Academy Interest Rate Generator (“AIRG”), the most commonly used real-world ESG for US actuaries

Description: Learn from panelists from different companies as they come together to discuss their experiences.

Description: In *From Distress to Distinction*, Chris Droussiotis explores a novel approach to valuing distressed companies using option pricing theory, drawing parallels to the financial challenges faced by startups. With over 30 years in banking and startup advising, he emphasizes that both distressed firms and early-stage ventures endure periods of negative cash flow but retain potential for recovery. He combines Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) and the Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model to evaluate distressed firms’ recovery prospects and debt sustainability. A case study on Spirit Airlines illustrates this approach: though its current equity value is negative, projected future cash flows suggest significant potential recovery. Droussiotis concludes that strategic valuation, using trend, peer, and expected analysis, can reveal hidden value in distressed companies, guiding effective investment and restructuring decisions.

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: Building new models or migrating from one system to another is hard! During this session, you will hear from your colleagues who have gone through such projects. You will gain a better sense of what to expect, what to avoid, and what to prioritize for such projects. The discussion will be system agnostic. Learn about pitfalls and how to avoid them!

Description: In the United States, there has been much industry discussion of the challenges associated with a sustained low interest rate environment, which impacts both the asset and liability sides of the balance sheet in unfavorable ways. The intent of this article is not to focus on these strategic issues. Rather, we attempt to shine a spotlight on some of the modeling challenges that practicing actuaries may experience when incorporating negative interest rates into their models.

Description: The instructors in this boot camp session will highlight the SOA's work on an updated Medicaid underwriting margin model. This research project includes an excel model, a set of instructions and a paper describing the key components of underwriting margin, including cost of capital and risk margin.

Description: The session begins with a brief introduction to Gen AI, including “what it is” and how to optimize outputs. Then, we will to provide some insight into what we are seeing within the Actuarial space – this would include the extent to which actuaries are using Gen AI on a day-to-day basis, how they are going about using it, and some predictions as to where this will go.