Description: A compilation of reader responses is presented to a real life situation posed involving a management, leadership, or other business decision. This issue’s case study involved a career decision by a near FSA.

Description: This article provides information on the 2025 SOA Health Meeting, including how to submit a proposal, key dates, and other relevant information.

Description: Based on a late 19th century analysis, life insurance premiums were once differentiated by race, with Blacks/African Americans experiencing higher rates than for whites. Over time, the actuarial profession has had increasing focus on professionalism and responsibility to the public, and today all members of the five actuarial organizations based in the U.S. are subject to the Code of Professional Conduct. Come engage in interactive discussion about how Precept 1 might help current actuaries avoid bias in our work, including when thinking about risk classifications and dealing with new technologies. By attending the session, you will be able to: Understand the importance of Precept 1 in our self-governing profession. Think about prevailing conventional wisdom and potential bias in your current work. In this webcast, dive into the past history of life insurance premiums and the growth of the actuarial profession due to an increasing focus on professionalism and responsibility to the public. Premiums were once differentiated upon by race, the Black/African American population experiencing higher rates. Due to the Code of Professional Conduct, all members of the five actuarial organizations based in the U.S. are now subject to this rule. This interactive discussion is meant to engage the audience in an overview of Precept 1, which might help actuaries avoid bias in their work. This includes risk classifications and dealing with new technologies. If you were able to make it to the 2022 SOA ImpACT Conference, this is a repeat of Session 2F.

Description: Reunite with members and non-members in the China actuarial community to discuss recent topics and related issues in areas such as macroeconomic sharing, IFRS 17, product strategy, cross-border communication and discussion, and more. Advance your career through learning and networking opportunities, and share your experiences in the finance and insurance industries, as well as other fields related to actuarial science.

Description: Court is in session and you are the jury! Follow along as challenging aspects of actuarial professionalism are explored in a court-like setting. Deliberate based on what you already know from your own experience, as well as what you learn in this session. Then, deliver your verdict accordingly. Who says learning about actuarial professionalism can't be fun?

Description: Article looks at various catastrophic events in past years specifically around insurance claims and the negative impact this has had on the insurance/reinsurance industries. It suggests better communication strategies for companies when dealing with the public.

Description: In this session, we will explore the opportunities and challenges of leveraging AI tools to support valuation actuaries in their work. We will begin by introducing the concept of large language models (LLMs), discussing their capabilities, limitations, and potential errors. We will then delve into case studies that demonstrate how LLMs can be effectively utilized to reference actuarial documents.

Description: This is the second installment of a two-part series. Part I was published in the July 2023 issue of The Stepping Stone and provided guidance on how a new (re)insurance company can build an attractive work environment for actuarial talent. In part II we will focus on how to encourage those actuaries to remain with the company in the long run.

Description: It highlights key initiatives and leadership changes within the SOA Education and Research (E&R) Section in year 2025.

Description: In the spring of 2019, Dr. Cai started to serve as the Actuarial Science Program coordinator at Salisbury University, a medium-sized public teaching school in Maryland. At that time, the program was small, with only two faculty members who focused on both statistics and actuarial science, with approximately 10 students. During the next five years, the program did make some achievements in curriculum development, student exam preparation, job placement, and recognition, but Dr. Cai continued to have a dream to make the program unique. Dr. Cai believed that the skill sets students learned, even from a small program, could enable them to compete with anyone on a global basis. In spring 2024, Dr. Cai advised a group of exceptional actuarial students to participate in the 2024 Society of Actuaries (SOA) Student Research Case Study Challenge (SRCSC), and the team won third place – —behind two teams from the University of New South Wales, Australia. This article is the story of the journey.