Description: Genetic algorithms [GAs] and neural networks [NNs] are currently being used in actuarial and financial modeling. Nonetheless, while there is a general awareness of the nature of these techniques, there is often only vague familiarity with the details of how they are implemented. This paper is intended to help alleviate this situation. Its purpose is to present an overview of GAs and NNs, which includes an explanation of what they are, how they work, and an example of how they are implemented.

Description: This paper reviews the applications of operations research methods in the insurance industry. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1995, Vol. 47.

Description: As the use of predictive models and novel datasets becomes more prevalent, a focus on consumer protection is being highlighted by regulators, ethicists, and industry insiders. Over time, increased rigor should and will be applied in model development and implementation. These issues are not new. Hundreds of individuals have worked on these issues in the laboratory, the board room, and the court room. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Uniform Guidelines of the US EEOC, the Principles for the Validation and Use of Personnel Selection and other sources are intended to protect the rights of citizens and consumers and provide guidance to professionals in the development and use of decision-making tools. Drawing heavily on examples and parallels from psychology and employment practices as well as other disciplines, concepts such as model bias, fairness, adverse impact, disparate treatment and the like will be presented. Suggestions to ensure model validity, demonstrate model and data relevancy and minimize the potential for adverse impact to protected classes will also be offered. Each of these considerations will be linked to recent dialogue and concerns in the Life Insurance sector.

Description: A recent study sheds light on the measurement and implications of the relationship between increased morbidity and declining disability. The results were not consistent across all populations. This study of the compression of morbidity is part of a wider project called the M-project, led by the four authors, which aims to explore the demographic factors leading to an increase in the adult longevity, investigate the phenomenon called the compression of mortality and develop a new methodological approach to longevity analysis with focus on the modal age at death M.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to help practitioners and regulators more accurately quantify the potential impact of market risk on insurance products with equity-linked guarantees. To this end, this paper examines time series model selection and assessment based on residuals, with a focus on regime switching models. Also it discusses the difficulties in defining residuals for such processes and propose several possible alternatives. We determine that a stochastic approach to defining the residuals is the only way to generate residuals that are normally distributed under the model hypothesis.

Description: An economic value model is used by the National Hockey League NHL to allocate salary budgets between players using a method based principally on salary comparison between players with similar statistics.

Description: The American Academy of Actuaries and the Society of Actuaries have joined resources to maintain this Economic Scenario Generators Excel Workbook tool for use in regulatory reserve and capital calculations. Please see the SOA website research pages for further information on this tool and how to use it.

Description: This abstract describes a paper that explores the answers to the questions of: 1. How is each view of FRVs conceptualized? 2. What are the differences and similarities between the metrics for each of these views? 3. How are the metrics for these three views implemented?

Description: This report introduces quantum computing to actuaries. In addition, this research will assess and identify areas in the insurance field where quantum computing can make a difference, accompanied with suggested algorithms.

Description: Toward a Predictive Analytics Framework files