Description: This article describes the history and in some respects, the future of Big Data, and the tools we can use to handle it for PM and for machine learning. One such tool is Vowpal Wabbit, which sounds like something from a Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd cartoon (“Dwat that wabbit”), but it really is a popular approach to process a dataset of any size, as there is no need to load all the data into memory. Big data is forcing us to enhance many of our tools. So is the increased actuarial usage of stochastic-in-stochastic analyses (nested stochastic processes), which can result in unacceptably long program run times. Many of our popular computer languages are not inherently well suited for parallel computations.

Description: Realizing the impact of medical errors on the U.S. health care system, the Health Section commissioned a research project to measure the annual frequency of medical errors and their total measurable direct and indirect cost to the economy.

Description: A closer look at family tier factor rating assumptions, and how well they reflect actual claim cost data.

Description: A study of disability experience examines cost burden and degree of disability, and how these measures vary across different subpopulations.

Description: Discussion of the separate and joint effects of obesity and diabetes on disability and mortality, and ways these effects can be used to improved insurance pricing and reserving, reverse the increasing rates of obesity and diabetes, and improve current projections of disability and mortality risks.

Description: Looks at free and inexpensive resources for the novice in predictive analytics, covering the data analysis theory as well as the most commonly used languages/software used in the field.

Description: The authors explain big data and the potential uses of this information, especially as it is beginning to be adopted by the life insurance industry.

Description: We highlight a new approach leveraging predictive analytics to identify high risk and rising risk opioid users for more effective screening and follow-up care.