Description: Summary of the modeling-related sessions from some of the major 2018 Society of Actuaries (SOA) meetings: Life & Annuity Symposium, Health Meeting and the Valuation Actuary Symposium.

Description: A description of the operation of an R package for experience studies. Premium patterns, lapse rates, and mortality rates can be calculated.

Description: Explores the applications and techniques of model governance, focusing on benefits such as model literacy, efficiency, and confidence.

Description: This article explains the importance of centralizing modeling departments. It goes further and explains the importance of making all aspects of modeling reusable. It explains the consequences of decentralization.

Description: Description of methods for extracting and reformatting the existing mortality tables using R. Methods and formats for storage are discussed in the second article. Intent is to generate discussion regarding the format of our stored mortality tables. Value is in the demonstration of task automation in R and in the reduction of duplicate work across companies related to reformatting tables.

Description: What is a "super" model? How do we develop, maintain, and visualize them? What is the difference between models and assumptions? Most importantly, how can we use all of this to quantifiably improve risk management?

Description: This article describes how to externalize code of Moody's Axis platform to Visual Studio, so that all the actuarial calculation code run through corporate DevOps pipeline. This article gives specific examples of the author has used in his job to accomplish automated model governance.

Description: Actuarial systems access and change controls are hot topics these days as modeling continues to increase in complexity and as new modeling regulations may begin to crest over the horizon. Many companies are currently in the process of either formalizing their actuarial system access and change control protocols, or are reevaluating and strengthening their existing control processes in response to identified deficiencies or in conjunction with new actuarial system implementations. With these undertakings in mind, this article discusses a number of valuable components commonly incorporated in formal systems access and change control protocols. Also discussed are leading practices identified in the SOA publication “Actuarial Modeling Controls: A Survey of Actuarial Modeling Controls in the Context of a Model-Based Valuation Framework (December 2012)”, and from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Description: In this article, we talk to Lei Rao-Knight, FSA, Vice President and Actuary at Prudential Financial. Lei discusses her model development experience in the Modeling Center of Excellence.

Description: Everyone loves efficiency. But what does it truly mean for something to be efficient? An actuary who has spent almost 20 years managing process improvements shares his experiences and the evolution of his views on efficiency. This parable highlights the broader aspects of efficiency that are often missed, and some of the challenges that can come from targeting a typical view of efficiency.