Description: "Focuses on innovations in financial reporting processes that connect actuarial results with finance in a clear, efficient way. The session covers tools and techniques for automating data flows from actuarial models to financial statements, reducing manual work at quarter-end. It also highlights the use of visualization and business intelligence (BI) tools to communicate valuation results (e.g., interactive dashboards for reserve roll-forwards or attribution analysis). By sharing success stories of automating FP&A workflows and adopting self-service analytics, presenters will show how actuaries can provide more timely insights to management. Attendees will take away ideas for improving reporting accuracy, audit trail, and the strategic value of actuarial information in decision-making."

Description: This 60-minute panel discussion led by Academy volunteers will explore the treatment of reinsurance under the Valuation Manual's principles-based reserving (PBR) requirements for life insurance (VM-20). Panelists will discuss different reinsurance agreements, such as coinsurance, modified coinsurance, guaranteed and non-guaranteed yearly renewable term (YRT), stop-loss reinsurance, and financial reinsurance. The session aims to address practical reinsurance considerations for PBR in 2025, focusing on emerging issues such as reinsurance reserve credit and approaches for YRT reinsurance, and considering relevant ASOPs and updates to Practice Notes. Participants will gain insight into how different reinsurance structures affect VM-20 reserving.

Description: This session will explore recent and historical advancements in computing relevant to actuarial analysis. We will provide a comprehensive overview of the current landscape, tracing the journey of how we arrived here and how actuaries are already harnessing these innovations. This session will primarily be focused on hardware and as software programming interfaces the latter, in effect, helps accelerate code and ease of access to specialized hardware. We will also examine optimization opportunities involving the intersection of the two.

Description: Article about why the actuarial profession is a promising career in India.

Description: Article about emerging risks in India for India SOA newsletter

Description: News release about recently announced UCAPs

Description: The video, by Kara Clark, explains how technology is a major long-term driver of future mortality, drawing on Chapter 8 of the SOA Research Institute’s Long-Term Drivers of Future Mortality report.

Description: In recent years, there has been a significant increase in life and annuity business transactions transferring blocks of business across jurisdictions. These transactions raise important questions for stakeholders-including policyholders, regulators, rating agencies, investors, and companies themselves-about the drivers of financial results under different regulatory and accounting regimes.As financial reporting frameworks grow more complex-whether US Statutory, IFRS 17, US GAAP, or Solvency II-stakeholders are demanding deeper insights into how results are determined and how they compare across jurisdictions. Understanding these differences is critical for assessing financial performance, capital strength, and risk exposures, particularly in a cross-border context.To address this need, many companies are developing and applying bridging analyses-such as waterfall analyses, step-by-step reconciliations, and other frameworks-to explain how and why results differ between reporting bases. These approaches help clarify key drivers and provide transparency to stakeholders.In this session, representatives from leading companies will share practical approaches they use to bridge these gaps, offering insights into the methodologies and analyses that have proven most effective in navigating cross-jurisdiction financial reporting challenges. Attendees will gain a clearer understanding of cross-jurisdiction reporting differences and take away ideas for applying effective bridging techniques within their own organizations.

Description: Most people will now have had some exposure to Large Language Model tools such as ChatGPT and will have been impressed by their ability to write essays or generate computer code. However, fewer people will be aware of the next phase of AI, which will turn AI chat assistants into more fully fledged AI colleagues. These emerging set of tools come under the broad term of “AI agents”, which are AI-based systems which have capabilities beyond a simple chat interface and are able to interact with external tools, access data, and most importantly have the capability to plan and perform arbitrarily complex tasks. In this talk we will explore the emerging field of AI agents and discuss our experiences using such frameworks to build end-to-end actuarial modelling solutions and demo some POCs we have been working on for the audience. We will also cover topics related to building such complex AI systems including: prompt-engineering fine-tuning retrieval augmented generation function calling specific AI agent frameworks and how they will allow AI to participate in all the different stages of the actuarial modelling process from coding and testing to documentation and analysis.

Description: "In this session, we will explore the latest trends in asset allocation, focusing on how these trends are shaping the investment landscape in 2025. With insights from industry experts and real-world examples, attendees will gain a comprehensive understanding of the factors driving asset allocation decisions and the implications for portfolio management. We will delve into the impact of economic policies, market volatility and emerging asset classes on asset allocation strategies. This session is designed for actuaries, investment professionals and anyone interested in staying ahead of the curve in the ever-evolving world of asset allocation. Learning outcomes: Understand the key trends in asset allocation for 2025, including the influence of economic policies and market dynamics. Identify emerging asset classes and their potential impact on portfolio diversification and risk management. Gain insights into the strategies used by leading investment professionals to navigate market volatility and optimize asset allocation. Learn how to apply these trends and strategies to enhance your own investment decision-making process."