Description: Fact sheet that defines ERM, provides a brief history, discusses the role of the actuary in ERM and the importance of organizations implementing an ERM framework.

Description: Crises are devastating. They leave behind a high amount of entropy unemployment, poverty, lack of safety. But this is half the truth. The other half says that crises are to some extend good, because they provide a natural crash test to discover current practices’ risks and limitations, and in response, give rise to more efficient regulation, to financial innovations and to the wakening of the vitalizing powers of society, as the old and corrupted die and new ideas emerge and give us the opportunity to reflect upon the future we want to have.

Description: The liquidity crisis and the insufficient depth of the market led to a strong correlation crisis: many risks that could be considered as close to mutually independent in the classical regime suddenly became strongly positively dependent. More correlation crisis may happen in the future. We need to be more careful with black-box tools and to train what I would define as “quanlitative analysts” “Quanls” in the Enterprise Risk Management ERM process, that is risk managers who are able to lead interdisciplinary ERM studies from a jointly qualitative and quantitative point of view, with an emphasis on dynamics.

Description: Models are imperfect approximations of reality. Once a bubble has been recognized, that’s the time for mechanisms of caution and prudence to kick in, even in the face of exuberance – especially in the face of exuberance. Liquidity and trust is plentiful until it’s not – it can evaporate with blazing speed and only returns slowly. Risk is contagious, which means every single employee and citizen has a vested interest in taking on the role of chief risk officer.

Description: This article will examine four approaches under two different methods (eight in total) used to combat the non-additivity of key rates and will compare them under a number of rate environments.

Description: Deciding where to spend that next dollar of capital is at the heart of financial management. Executive teams regularly grapple with decisions on whether to purchase a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, invest in growing a distribution channel, expand into a new geographic area, or develop a new product, among many. The great news is there is no shortage of sound financial theory and logical rationale for making these transformational decisions. Yet business literature is filled with examples of decisions that did not meet expectations, sometimes materially missing the mark when comparing experience to assumptions. This is particularly the case with mergers and acquisitions, where multiple studies have shown that a sizable majority of such transactions do not achieve their intended outcomes. While some of the disappointing returns are attributable to random chance and unfortunate circumstances, a material number of them can be traced back to cognitive issues that arose during the decision-making process. Mental shortcuts or heuristics taken by individual decision-makers in evaluating information, as well as organizational dynamics such as groupthink both contribute to sub-optimal choices involving significant outlays of money. Being aware of these and having established protocols to mitigate against them can substantially improve decision-making around capital allocation and reduce misallocation of funds. In this session, the panelists discuss several common cognitive biases that can adversely impact the capital allocation decision process, introducing the notions of time, accounting convention, positivity, hierarchy, and social proof in describing them. Historical case examples of sub-optimal capital allocation are then explored, identifying the contributing behavioral factors including the simultaneous confluence of multiple factors. The panelists will close the session with several suggestions for attendees to consider for incorporation into their decision-making processes. At the conclusion of the session, attendees will be able to: - Learn common cognitive biases that impact capital allocation decisions - Differentiate which biases impact different aspects of the capital allocation process - Build awareness of biases affecting capital allocation decision models - Mitigate cognitive biases present in decision making processes

Description: The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) project for the transition to a new real-world economic scenario generator (ESG) prescribed for principle-based reserve and capital calculations selected a vendor in the fall of 2020. The American Academy of Actuaries and other interested parties have been assisting the NAIC in this transition. Over the past four years, extensive analysis, model validation, and comparison work has been done. There have been many updates on the project but few opportunities to obtain an in-depth understanding of the new features of the new ESG and its impact on reserves and capital. Practitioners are very interested in the questions: - How different are the scenarios from the Academy/Society of Actuaries ESG and the new NAIC ESG? - How different are the models and techniques used to create the scenarios in both generators? - Is there a significant difference in capital and reserve requirements for model office tests between the two ESGs? - Are there concerns with the new NAIC ESG? The session addresses each of these questions in detail. At the conclusion of the session attendees will appreciate the key differences between the model structure and scenario performance of the two ESGs and will understand the differences in capital and reserve requirements for model office tests across the two ESGs. Attendees will also learn how the initial yield curve fitting differs between the models, about fund mapping considerations, and the interpretability of parameters in the new NAIC model.

Description: This session will highlight the growing significance of climate risk for insurance companies, emphasizing how to prepare for regulatory requirements as well as the impacts on financial stability and operational resilience within the industry. Attendees will gain insights specifically addressing climate risk within insurance operations including enhancing governance structures, ensuring regulatory compliance, identifying and monitoring metrics and key risk indicators, and conducting scenario analyses. Through real-world case studies and perspectives from both life and property and casualty practitioners, participants will leave equipped with practical strategies to navigate the complexities of climate risk management, foster transparency and accountability, and effectively address the urgent challenges posed by climate risk within their organizations. Learning Objectives: - Understand the evolving landscape of climate risk and regulatory requirements for climate risk disclosure - Gain insights into effective approaches and current best practices that actuaries and risk modelers may use in performing qualitative and quantitative climate risk scenario analyses - Learn practical strategies for integrating climate risk considerations into insurance operations

Description: Joint Risk Management Section chairperson's corner, June 2023

Description: In this session, we will examine AM Best's credit rating methodology, the evaluation of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Programs for insurers, and how ERM evaluations are incorporated into ratings. AM Best staff will present the results of a study of AM Best-rated health insurers' ERM programs.