Chairperson’s Corner
By Carlos Arocha
International News, March 2022
In this second International News of 2022, we feature a contribution by Frank Schiller, a Board Member of the German Association of Actuaries. Schiller tackles the question of what makes a pandemic so difficult to manage compared to other low frequency and high severity events, and most importantly, why should we worry about the next pandemic.
We also complete the series that highlights the importance of career planning—tapping on the SOA’s Competency Framework. In a last instalment, authors Philip Gold, Richard Junker, and Curtis Lee Robbins discuss an actuarial career breakthrough case study. This article was previously featured in the October 2020 issue of The Actuary of the Future, but given the wide variety of regulatory regimes, methodologies, tools, and actuarial practice around the world, we thought that the article would round up the offerings to our section’s membership.
In other news, the section council held its annual planning meeting, where we laid out the section’s objectives, including the generation of internationally relevant webcasts and podcasts, organization of meetings with universities and students in coordination with the SOA, and investing in research activities with other sections. At the time of this writing, we are collaborating with the Social Insurance and Public Finance section in the development of a global survey on public funding of social security schemes.
From our section’s demographics, we have noticed that many of our members also belong to other sections, the top ones in order of membership being:
- Financial Reporting
- Reinsurance
- Product Development
- Investment
- Risk Management
This fact is taken into consideration in the development and delivery of content that is useful to you, as a member of the International Section.
As always, we are looking to recruit volunteers for our international activities, and we are also contemplating introducing micro-volunteering tasks, where a modest amount of time can be invested in specific tasks. Should you be interested in micro-volunteering, please contact me at ca@ArochaAndAssociates.ch.
Carlos Arocha, FSA, is managing partner of Arocha & Associates, an actuarial consulting firm based in Zurich, Switzerland. He can be reached at ca@ArochaAndAssociates.ch.