The Actuary December 2015

DECEMBER 2015 theactuary.com

Interview: Kathryn Morgan

The magazine of the actuarial profession

Talking power, responsibility and gender diversity

Risk Building a holistic framework for assessing model error risk

Reinsurance Going for gold in emerging markets

Modelling Rise of machine learning for GLMs

SPANNER IN THE WORKS Getting to grips with operational risk

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In today’s world, complacency has a cost. Unforeseen risks can even bring down a company. To go beyond oversight and bring insight, rely on one of the global leaders in risk consulting. Because the status quo really isn’t an option. To learn more, visit uk.milliman.com

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DECEMBER 2015

Contents

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Every organisation wants to avoid those rare, once-in-a-decade, black swan risk events that have the potential to destroy their business

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21

UP FRONT

FEATURES

AT THE BACK

10 IFoA news

18 Interview: Kathryn Morgan

32 Books

14 People/society news 16 SIAS events

OPINION 4

Editorial In his last column as editor, Kelvin Chamunorwa considers the advancement in technology and the impact on actuarial work

Director of regulatory operations at the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission discusses power, responsibility and gender diversity

21 Risk: Maintaining model behaviour Roger Simler and Andrew Wood explore a holistic framework for assessing model error risk

27 Modelling: Judgment day for pricing

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Letters Actuaries discuss retirement, risk, regulation and cheese

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President’s comment After the GIRO conference, Fiona Morrison expounds on the benefits of face-to-face communication

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Tony Ward provides an algorithmic framework for building generalised linear models using machine learning

MORE CONTENT ONLINE Additional content can be found at www.theactuary.com

COVER: SHUTTERSTOCK / CRAIG ZUDACK

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Superforecasting: the art and science of prediction by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner

34 Puzzles Try the latest cryptic crossword and Mensa puzzles, plus solutions

37 Student Jessica Elkin lights the way ahead with a festive strategy for present buying

38 Actuary of the future Sahib Singh Khosla of Tausi Assurance Company

30 Reinsurance: Going for gold Alexander Hanks asks whether Reinsurers will find their El Dorado in emerging markets

Soapbox Konstantinos Drakos predicts challenging times ahead for the Greek banking sector

Matthew Edwards reviews

33 Agony actuary Witty advice on the inconvenience of an elbow in mouth entanglement

38 Appointments and moves

ONLINE The Actuary e-newsletter To sign up, visit: www.theactuary.com/email-sign-up/

WRITER OF THE MONTH The editorial team has agreed that Tony Ward is the writer of the month for his feature on building generalised linear models using machine learning.

December 2015 • THE ACTUARY www.theactuary.com

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24/11/2015 11:22

Opinion Editorial theactuary.com

editor@theactuary.com

Time travels Kelvin Chamunorwa highlights the advancement in technology and its impact on actuarial work

Publisher Redactive Media Group 17-18 Britton Street, London EC1M 5TP +44 (0)20 7880 6200 Publishing director Joanna Marsh Managing editor Sharon Maguire +44 (0)20 7880 6246 sharon.maguire@redactive.co.uk Sub-editors Kathryn Manning Caroline Taylor

It is hard to believe that this issue of The Actuary is the last one of this year, and concludes my two-year editorship. They say time flies when you’re having fun, but apparently there is actually a scientific theory behind this saying.

Unfortunately for me, entering into a time warp to extend the experience is the preserve of only science fiction.

Interestingly though, what was once a figment of science fiction writers’ imagination is now actually taking root in our everyday existence. Take artificial intelligence (AI), which is already having a profound, yet subtle, impact on our lives today. Email spam filtering, search engine predictions and voice recognition are familiar examples of AI technologies, all based on machine learning algorithms.

This is also relevant to us as actuaries, since machine learning has applications in actuarial work too, as Tony Ward demonstrates. In this issue, he presents a framework for building generalised linear models – which many actuaries will be conversant with in their work – using predictive modelling techniques from machine learning. It is a fascinating article that uses real data from TheActuaryJobs.com to illustrate the concept (p27).

On the subject of models, Roger Simler and Andrew Wood argue that model error risk should be more prominent in the minds of insurance company board members and senior managers. The authors make a strong case for the need to develop a holistic model risk assessment framework across an organisation (p21).

Elsewhere in this edition, we interview Kathryn Morgan, an actuary who leads regulatory operations at the Financial Services Commission in Gibraltar and also sits on the IFoA Council (p18).

Among the many letters we received this month, actuaries have their say on a range of topics, including climate change, censuses and cheese (p5).

To conclude, I extend my gratitude to the entire team at The Actuary, its contributors and its readers, for a most memorable experience. Thank you also to Ruvi, Kuzi, Paida and Nandi at home for sacrificing your time with me as I served my profession in this way.

I now leave you in the capable hands of incoming editor Richard Purcell.

“What was once a figment of science-fiction writers’ imagination is now actually taking root in our everyday existence”

Kelvin Chamunorwa Editor

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THE ACTUARY • December 2015 www.theactuary.com

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24/11/2015 12:20

Opinion Letters to the editor editor@theactuary.com

Risky business

Have your say online

More comments are posted online about news stories published on www.theactuary.com.

The recent headline of a news story in The Actuary: Pensions industry is not taking enough investment risk, say actuaries (bit.ly/1VWkNnG) is a dangerous and highly unfortunate message to propagate. Ashok Gupta is quoted as saying that over the past 20 years companies have massively reduced their risk-bearing away from equities to bonds, leading to problems.

The article, and particularly the headline, is misleading, and key issues are overlooked.

Over the past 20 years, companies and trustees have indeed massively reduced risk in pension schemes. But they were still taking massive risks, and it was the taking of these risks that led to the problems and the pension scheme deficits we face today. The best-performing asset for pension schemes over the past 20 years has, in fact, also been the least-risk asset. A typical matching bond portfolio would have massively outperformed a typical equity portfolio over the past 20 years.

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Changing retirement I was sorry to see Anne Sander and Alan Finch in their article in The Actuary (November 2015, bit.ly/1MopoIS) perpetuating the notion that retirement is ‘a recent phenomenon’ and that a ‘retirement age’ only came ‘with the introduction of state pension benefits for older people in 1908’.

It is true that even in the middle of the 19th century, many elderly men and women continued with some paid employment into their 70s and later, but significant numbers of people were already describing themselves as ‘retired’ in the 1851 census returns. By the last quarter of the century, increasing bureaucratisation and standardisation of job content and pay, increasing awareness of safety risks, particularly from failing eyesight, and changing attitudes, all meant that a growing share of elderly people were no longer able to, or wished to, find any other than very occasional employment.

The 1891 Census of England and Wales showed that 35% of men of 65 and over had no employment, with a fifth of this age group explicitly stating that they were ‘retired’.

The 1901 Census showed 31% of men aged 65-74 and 61% of men aged 75 and over as having no regular employment – and it also showed 21% and 38% respectively as explicitly returning themselves as ‘retired’ or as a ‘pensioner’.

Within this context, what the 1908 pensions legislation did was to extend, on a means-tested basis, financial support to a wider group of those who could no longer work, or did not wish to. But, by then, retirement was already a widely practised experience, and at a wide range of ages.

Professor Michael Anderson 6 November 2015

MORE LETTERS ONLINE More letters are available online at www.theactuary.com/opinion

SHUTTERSTOCK

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It makes no economic sense for companies to issue bond-like promises to employees (in the form of a promise to pay a future pension) and then seek to invest in risky assets to deliver on those promises (accepting the point that the original ‘promises’ were only turned into absolute promises by government legislation) – in the same way that it makes no sense for a manufacturing company to issue a bond in the market and then use the proceeds of that bond to invest in a portfolio of risky assets, even if those risky assets are expected to give a return in excess of the cost of servicing the bond. The obvious truth of this was amply shown by Exley, Mehta and Smith nearly 20 years ago.

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Short-term volatilities do matter. A primary purpose of a pension scheme is to provide security for members in the event that the sponsor company is unwilling, or unable, to continue to deliver on its pension scheme promises.

Sure, if we never had to worry about companies going bust, we would not need to be so concerned about deficits and short-term volatilities. But companies do go bust, and, sadly, there is a correlation between the insolvency of companies and the size of the deficit in their pension scheme.

I hope that this sort of misleading thinking (and headline grabbing) is not encouraged.

Charles Cowling 4 November 2015

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The editor welcomes readers’ letters but reserves the right to edit them for publication. Please email editor@theactuary.com.

The deadline for receiving letters for the January/February 2016 issue is 18 January 2016.

December 2015 • THE ACTUARY www.theactuary.com

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24/11/2015 09:21

Opinion Letters to the editor editor@theactuary.com

Have your say online

More comments are posted online about news stories published on www.theactuary.com.

Actuary cheese As someone who applied for a job advertised by a nascent market research company in the 1950s, I was interested to learn from the article about Ben Page (The Actuary, November 2015, bit. ly/1WRnq5b) the developments in that industry over the intervening 65 years.

I was brought up short by his remark: “We have so much data now, and we are finding some interesting correlations, such as a link between divorce rates and cheese eating.” A statement such as this should not go unquestioned. Although I have no statistical evidence in support, I would say that there is also positive correlation between cheese eating and left-handed people.

Assuming answers to obvious questions such as ‘positive or negative correlation?’ and ‘which divorce rates?’ – here I am tempted to repeat the old actuarial chestnut “broken down by age and sex” – I infer that he is telling us that they found that divorced people in general (regardless of factors such as age, sex, time since divorce) eat more cheese than an identically constructed control group of non-divorced people.

This interests me personally because, being recently widowed and living on my own, I do in fact eat far more cheese than I did during the many years of my marriage. So my immediate first question would be: “Is there a similar cæsura in the habits of his group of cheese eaters?”

In the form in which Ben Page states it, the correlation would be of little interest to a cheese purveyor and even less so to anyone else – except, perhaps, a divorce lawyer looking for clients. But, as he tells us that “We have so much data now”, what would be of ‘interest’ to the cheese purveyor would be to know more about the statistical features of his group of cheese eaters and his control group, and even more so if given a range of control groups each exhibiting the various factors mentioned above.

One can envisage various marketing strategies developing from the results – for example, relating to time since divorce: “Recently divorced? Special offer – Buy two and get one free!”

Tony Ratcliff 7 November 2015

A climate of doubt When I was studying to become an actuary, I was taught to obtain and assemble the data that would be required to create a model from which forecasts could be derived. As actuarial students, we also learnt that we would be lucky in that our predictions would, for the most part, be long term and hence, should they be seen to be

going awry, further data, which had evolved in the meantime, could be used improve our model and the ensuing forecasts. In those days, computer power was almost non-existent, and, consequently, models were designed to be comparatively simple. Today, we believe we can use the enormous computer power at our disposal to assemble and utilise vast amounts of data. We also believe our computers can perform the magic of transforming data, which might, at best, be accurate to one decimal place, into estimates that are accurate to as many as four or five decimal places. In doing this, we ignore the Eureka moment of Edward Lorenz, the father of chaos theory.

We believe we can use the same enormous computer power to combine as many as 40 different variables into a single complex model, despite the fact that we do not know the distribution of many of the parameters. We do not know whether they are linear or non-linear, cyclical or noncyclical, random or chaotic, independent or correlated.

The first assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was based on 90 models. After the relatively short period of 24 years, global temperatures, as measured by satellite, have fallen significantly below the 95% confidence levels forecast by 88 of these models and, as measured by adjusted surface thermometers, by 86 of the models. Despite revisions based on the further data that had become available over the intervening years, few, if any, of the models used for the second and third IPCC assessments have been any more successful in their predictions.

The only prediction of any of the first four IPCC assessments that has turned out to be accurate is that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere would continue to rise. Thus we have a situation where the driver has moved ahead, while the driven has, stubbornly, refused to follow. With similar results, any competent actuary might be expected to doubt the validity of his model. But, while many have modified their models, the Canutes of climate science still continue to believe that, through the continued burning of fossil fuel, man can and will alter natural balances and warm the planet.

In the past, the UK profession has been blamed for over estimating mortality and derided for its panic report on the AIDS epidemic. Perhaps the first task of the Climate Change Working Party should be to investigate the assumptions, derivation and validity of the climate models, which have, to date, failed so decisively. With their mathematical and statistical knowledge, actuaries are better qualified than most to perform this task.

Solomon Green 11 November 2015

MORE LETTERS ONLINE More letters are available online at www.theactuary.com/opinion

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THE ACTUARY • December 2015 www.theactuary.com

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SHUTTERSTOCK

24/11/2015 09:21

Cost of regulation Given the rising stakes of regulation, it’s time for actuarial professionals to review the merits and demerits of membership of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA).

This year, a complaint against two actuaries cost them an eye-watering £750,000 for behaviour that breached IFoA standards, despite it being acknowledged that they tried to act “in the client’s best interests”. This year, the IFoA also restated its intention to expand the scope of its standards.

The IFoA argues that higher, broader standards raise actuaries’ value. But one person’s extra standard is another person’s extra cost. Some employers have stated that broader standards lower actuaries’ value, making them less employable. One floated the idea of a new professional body for non-life actuaries.

Concurrent to all of this: trained actuaries find their skills used in an increasing range of non-traditional areas, with firms that require their experience and expertise, but not their certification. The most prolific winner of IFoA prizes and medals was, until recently, a student.

As the downsides of remaining regulated rise, the choice of whether to remain so will come more sharply into focus. There should be a broad consideration of these issues by regulators, recruiters and employers.

Owen Kellie-Smith 30 October 2015

Freedom and choice I was disappointed by the article Freedom and choice for annuity holders (The Actuary, November 2015, bit.ly/1QSYj2g).

It seems clear to me that dishonest sellers are a critical flaw in the notion of allowing annuities to be sold.

The author attempts to dismiss this problem by noting that some insurers are successfully selling annuities on a medically underwritten basis. However, he fails to realise that, for those products, the policyholders’ interests are best served by presenting as much authenticated evidence on their medical condition as they can – it’s unlikely that a simple lie will suffice

to get them a better deal. In the case of selling an annuity, however, the seller might simply attempt to sell it before they notify their doctor of any symptoms. The buyer seems to be left with only two options: to exhaustively underwrite each case (proving that the seller doesn’t have heart disease, or cancer, or any other condition) – or to apply a significant penalty to all sales. In either case, the costs will have to be passed to the seller – and this is likely to put most healthy sellers off, exacerbating the problem.

I can see a small market appearing for those wealthy enough that the underwriting cost is proportionally trivial (or can be covered by existing high-end medical cover).

But that’s all.

Jon Herbert 8 November 2015

Do what it says on the tin The IFoA president is keen to stretch the reach of the profession now that its traditional spheres (pensions and insurance) are in decline. There are many tasks that an actuary can perform, but very few that only an actuary can do.

There’s a saying in marketing that nothing kills a bad product more effectively than good advertising. A bank that professes to be a listening bank but doesn’t listen won’t last long.

If you think we won’t make that mistake, think of the strapline we adopted around the turn of the century: Actuaries make financial sense of the future.

Very seductive, but what does it mean? Did we live up to it? Around that time, Equitable was collapsing, bond yields were falling and a noose was being tightened around defined benefit schemes. To what extent did actuaries: ● tell life companies to look at their matching position and get into bonds? ● warn trustees and employers of the implications that enhanced leavers’ rights, abolition of ACT credits, mortality improvements and falls in real returns would have for pension fund costs?

I won’t answer that question but would suggest that before we seek new pastures we should show leadership in the areas we’re traditionally associated with.

The changes to annuities, the challenges of improving longevity and dementia/Alzheimer’s in an environment of very low interest rates calls for lateral thinking. For example, why not try equity-linked annuities? With dividend yields exceeding bond yields, we could design a marketable product.

Cut through the opaque wall of Solvency II and show insurance companies how to manage their future.

Success in these areas would improve our credibility in other fields.

Icki Iqbal 19 Nov 2015

The editor welcomes readers’ letters but reserves the right to edit them for publication. Please email editor@theactuary.com.

The deadline for receiving letters for the January/February 2016 issues is 18 January 2016.

December 2015 • THE ACTUARY www.theactuary.com

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24/11/2015 09:22

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Opinion President’s comment

Fiona Morrison is the president of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries

FIONA MORRISON

It’s good to talk Frank Sinatra, in his iconic 1969 song My Way, sang the immortal line: “Regrets, I’ve had a few.” If I’m being honest, I’m more of an Édith Piaf fan. My philosophy is that regrets are backward looking, energy sapping and negative, and I always try to look at life from an angle of not having regrets. So, in the words of Piaf, “Je ne regrette rien”.

I suspect you are questioning where I am going with this. Well, I now know that, had the opportunity arisen in the past, I would have hugely enjoyed attending GIRO conferences.

And if you are wondering what all the fuss is about, don’t take my word for it; make sure you are part of it next year, and I promise you won’t regret it.

If, like me, you are hooked on Strictly Come Dancing (compulsive Saturday evening viewing in the Morrison household), you will be familiar with judge Craig Revel Horwood’s catchphrase, “fab-u-lous”. Those ‘three words’, as he calls them, certainly summed up my three days in Liverpool at GIRO. I admit that the thought of meeting the two Strictly stars, Flavia Cacace and Vincent Simone, held a certain charm for me, but the real pull was meeting a new cohort of actuaries that I had, until now, very little contact with.

Yes, GIRO provided a platform to showcase new research, and the programme was littered with excellent speakers and fascinating presentations, as you would expect from an IFoA conference. But what really stood out for me was the buzz around the venue, generated

by GI actuaries from around the world coming together to network – and those GI actuaries can certainly network!

Seeing this vibrant community bouncing off each other, not only on the dance floor at the GIRO-does-Strictly gala dinner but also in the margins of conference sessions, reminded me of the classic BT advertisement from the 1990s that coined the phrase, ‘it’s good to talk’.

I firmly believe that a simple conversation can lead to better outcomes, and avoid the needless misunderstandings we’ve all experienced when modern communication methods are used, such as email. I’m sure many of you have been on one of those communications training courses where you are told of Mehrabian’s rule, which suggests

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After a successful GIRO conference, Fiona Morrison expounds on the benefits of face-to-face communication successful communication is 55% body language, 38% tone and only 7% words.

It is often said that the art of conversation is dying. Well maybe it is. I’ve noticed rail companies removing ‘quiet carriages’ from trains because everyone is tapping away on their smart phones rather than chatting.

There has also certainly been a massive evolution in the communications methods used by humans, from prehistoric fires, smoke signals and the banging of drums, to the invention of the electrical telegraph in 1838. But while innovation is a good thing that should be championed, it has led to communication methods that have, in many instances, replaced good, old-fashioned talking.

Now, I am not advocating that everything new is bad, on the contrary. At our new qualifiers’ events I encourage family and friends to take photos on their phones to post on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (and other social media apps that are available).

But sometimes it is better to talk face to face or over the telephone, or even via conference call.

Don’t worry, I’ve not yet been convinced to

sing my Christmas cards live-streamed over the internet!

I don’t know about you, but chatter around my Christmas dinner table often descends into hysterical conversation about some irrelevant or obscure fact that falls out of the obligatory Christmas cracker. If the same is true for you and yours, then here are some interesting/obscure/weird facts to throw into the mix if you are bored of the cracker jokes.

Apparently, sitting down is the new smoking. Standing at your desk instead of sitting can add 10 years to your life, while smoking 20 a day will knock off five.

According to Dr Michael Roizen, in his book The Real Age Makeover, flossing can add 6.4 years to your life.

And lastly, according to Wayne State University, Michigan, just smiling regularly can increase your life expectancy by seven years.

Needless to say, I can’t take the credit for researching these life-changing facts: for that I have to thank a journalist who contacted the IFoA press office for a comment.

Season’s greetings. Here’s looking forward to 2016 and some great conversations. a

“While innovation is a good thing, it has led to communication methods that have replaced good, old-fashioned talking”

THE ACTUARY • December 2015 www.theactuary.com

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24/11/2015 09:25

Dr Konstantinos Drakos is associate professor at Athens University of Economics and Business

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Opinion Soapbox

KONSTANTINOS DRAKOS

Lessons from a Greek tragedy The Greek banking sector is a typical peripheral system, characterised by relatively low global linkages. This feature provided an unexpected insulation mechanism that allowed Greek banks to escape the 2008 crisis largely unscarred. But later, they entered into a period of strain as a consequence of the Greek sovereign debt crisis.

The starting point was this debt plunging the macro economy into an unprecedented recession, in terms of depth and duration.

The past five years has witnessed a cumulative GDP loss that exceeds a quarter of its nominal level, while unemployment soared from about 10% to 27%. It was not long until these macroeconomic conditions were reflected in the banks’ performance. Greek banks witnessed a deterioration of their assets’ quality, since non-performing loans and delinquency rates increased substantially.

Another major blow was given by the (in)voluntary participation of banks in the Private Sector Involvement agreement, which produced about a 50% loss to their sovereign bond portfolio, comprising mainly Greek government bonds. Hence, Greek banks found themselves unable to meet Basel requirements, a situation that called for prompt corrective action, which took the form of a recapitalisation package mainly funded by the Greek state.

Apart from the drop in asset quality, Greek banks faced a liquidity problem brought about by their inability to raise funds in debt and capital markets, but, perhaps more crucially, by the continuous drop in deposits. This drop is certainly explained partly by the ongoing recession, but also by the deposits withdrawals owing to the depositors’ quest for safety. Deposit withdrawals are the natural response to increased uncertainty in a context where government’s explicit and implicit guarantees are questioned.

There is no doubt the Cypriot bail-in left its negative imprint on depositors’ trust. It seems maintaining this trust will prove a more costly task in the future whenever a country is hit by a systemic banking crisis.

Public trust was further shaken by the recent imposition of capital controls. Capital controls

Konstantinos Drakos predicts challenging times ahead for the Greek banking sector were imposed as a last resort in order to avoid a massive deposits withdrawal and thus a bank run. Before the controls were put in place, there was a prolonged period of economic uncertainty, which followed general elections and negotiation talks that led to the referendum, held in July. This was the trigger for accelerating deposit withdrawals, leaving bank deposits to record low levels. Although there have been some relaxing adjustments to the initial capital controls, they are still in place, causing problems for firms needing raw materials from abroad and generally to international transactions.

E-banking and debit/credit card use was low, so agents were caught off-guard, and, with the negative psychological impact, this produced a significant consumption deferral. A positive side effect was that, very swiftly, e-banking and, in general, non-cash transactions exhibited increased penetration to parts of the population and firms that were unfamiliar or reluctant to use them before.

The million-dollar question is what the future will hold for Greek banks. It is clear the banking system desperately needs recapitalisation.

The amount needed is yet to be determined and certainly will be finalised after the European Banking Authority performs the relevant stress tests. Based on the last available tests, before the imposition of controls, according to the adverse scenario at least two out of the four systemic

“Trust in the banking system is a very fragile intangible asset, gained over time”

banks would fall short by 50% of the Basel requirements. It remains to be seen whether the actual developments surpassed the assumptions of the stress tests’ adverse scenario.

Consolidation possibilities The Greek banking sector consists of four systemic banks and a dozen small cooperative banks with a limited regional operational profile.

Provided all four systemic banks survive, it is questionable whether all of them can operate profitably in the medium term, and I believe consolidation is unavoidable.

My prediction is that the cooperative banks will embark on a series of mergers, with the resulting banks having a wider geographical scope. They might opt for a mega-merger, resulting in a single bank focusing on regional development or micro lending.

The greatest challenge is rebuilding public trust and confidence, without which no banking system can operate. Recapitalisation and the removal of capital controls will be steps in the right direction, but rebuilding trust and confidence is bound to need more than just that.

The bottom line is that trust in the banking system is a very fragile intangible asset that is gained over time and depends on qualitative factors over and above just financial ratios.

From a selfish, academic point of view, this is a large-scale social experiment, and the outcome will teach us important lessons for the future. a Note: this article was written before the European Central Bank determination

December 2015 • THE ACTUARY www.theactuary.com

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24/11/2015 12:09

News NEWS UPDATES FROM THE ACTUARIAL PROFESSION

Upfront Opinion CEO’s comment Derek Cribb examines how the IFoA values of community, integrity and progress are coming to life

Another year of innovation Derek Cribb is the chief executive of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries

As is usual at this time of year, I like to take stock of the activities that we’ve undertaken at the IFoA over the past 12 months. I’m really pleased to say that it has been yet another year of innovation, which sees us moving from strength to strength. We are always working towards realising our IFoA values – community, integrity, progress – in everything that we do. I’m pleased to see that this year we are indeed making them come to life.

A perfect example of community is our conferences. This year we’ve undertaken the largest Life Conference we’ve ever had, which was a fitting accomplishment to mark its 30th anniversary. Our conferences continue to attract leading keynote speakers, including for the first time a Nobel laureate, and deliver content that is at the forefront of actuarial science for our members.

Following the great success we had with our Asia Conference in Beijing this year, we are bringing the conference to Kuala Lumpur in March 2016. Another mark of success for this conference is that a third of those attending last year were not IFoA members, which shows the strides we are making in promoting actuarial science more broadly.

In terms of integrity, our Quality Assurance Scheme (QAS) for organisations has opened to huge interest, and to date we have double the numbers of applicants that we had anticipated. I’m really looking forward to seeing the scheme rolled out with the first participant organisations over 2016.

And lastly, with progress, I’m very pleased to say that we’ve had our first fully qualified Certified Actuarial Analyst (CAA) come through the qualification: Michael Tagg, who works at the Government Actuary’s Department. The CAA qualification is gaining in popularity, with entries to Module 0 rising rapidly. While the majority of entries are from the UK, we are seeing candidates from countries in which the IFoA has not previously been represented. We have also seen employers actively recruiting for actuarial analysts, and promoting their staff through the qualification, which is fantastic news.

So, all in all, we’ve had a great year, which is due in no small part to the effective partnership between volunteers and the executive staff. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what new heights we’ll reach in 2016.

DEREK CRIBB

10

Subscriptions due The annual subscription fee for 2015/2016 is required by 31 December 2015 to avoid default of membership.

You can pay your subscription fee by logging onto the member’s area of the website or contacting the membership team.

Email: membership@actuaries.org.uk Phone: +44 (0)131 240 1325 If you wish to cancel your membership, please let us know, as defaulting could affect future reinstatement costs.

Overseas members: partial regulation applications along with certificate of eligibility are now due.

Partial regulation: bit.ly/1IW6z9G Certificate of eligibility: bit.ly/1HCKY6R Reduced rate subscriptions: completed forms are due as soon as possible.

Download form at bit.ly/1QpqA0i

CAA deadline If you are a Fellowship student, you have until 29 January 2016 to transfer to the Certified Actuarial Analyst. You are likely to be exempt from most of the six CAA exams and could very quickly gain a professional qualification.

Find out more: bit.ly/1OPTveL

Facing up to longevity challenge… overseas The IFoA, in partnership with the American Academy of Actuaries and the Actuaries Institute Australia, has released a report that examines longevity risk in the three countries’ retirement systems. The Challenge of Longevity Risk: Making Retirement Income Last a Lifetime highlights the need to better educate individuals and policymakers about the dangers of running out of money in retirement.

Read the report here: bit.ly/206Z106

… and at home The IFoA has published a policy briefing in the UK on the importance of saving for retirement to raise awareness of the role that government, employers and the pensions industry need to take in developing strategies that encourage a greater level of pension saving.

Read the policy briefing here: bit.ly/1WP2ID1

THE ACTUARY • December 2015 www.theactuary.com

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Autumn Lecture: exploring the role of banking and business The IFoA’s Autumn Lecture was delivered by one of the most successful business leaders of recent years, Lady Susan Rice. She is a leading expert in sustainability, and recently became a chair of the board of Scottish Water. Previously managing director of Lloyds Banking Group Scotland, Rice also became the first woman to head a UK clearing bank in 2000.

During her talk, she explored the vital role banking and business has to play in society. Over 200 people, including representatives from business, government departments, academia and third-sector organisations, attended this special event on 9 November.

Rice dedicated the first part of the lecture to the banking industry – what is changing and where it is heading. She stated that, in 2008, many in the banking industry had to think again about what leadership means and how the industry should operate.

We are seeing a change in banks on the back of new rules in a whole range of areas, which Rice calls the five Cs: competition, capital, compensation, controls and conduct.

Lady Rice: five Cs of banking

In themselves, these do not lead to trustworthy leadership, because trust is not something we can train for – it is not a skill. However, trustworthy leadership can be learned, and this was the goal behind an initiative called the Chartered Banker: Professional Standards Board.

Rice, who chairs this board, stated: “This is the first time there has been an attempt to professionalise the banking industry…all of which, we hope, will lead once again to renewed trust in our banking system.”

The second part of the lecture was dedicated to resource and environmental challenges. Rice drew on her recent experience as a chair of both Scottish Water and Scotland’s 2020 Climate Group. She stated the importance of having not only enough finance but also water and power to have both a sustainable economy and a safe and secure society. This is where the IFoA has started to bring its expertise to bear on the impact of climate change and the depletion of natural resources. Rice concluded: “Like banks, like utilities, we are all in the business of building a sustainable economy and a safe and secure society.”

The Autumn Lecture also provided an opportunity to recognise the commitments and achievements of individuals who demonstrate excellence in actuarial learning and research.

Suzanne Vaughan, leader of the IFoA’s Scottish Board, announced winners of the advanced higher mathematics prize and the prize for the best postgraduate actuarial student at Heriot-Watt University.

View the full Autumn Lecture online: bit.ly/1MlNcd0

Funeral plan trusts: new actuarial standard set to launch On 1 January 2016, a new Actuarial Profession Standard (APS) relating to UK trust-based pre-paid funeral plans will come into force.

APS Z1 applies to all members working for, advising or involved with funeral plan trusts. The IFoA has also produced guidance to help members and Trustees understand the APS and how to apply the requirements in practice.

Key requirements The APS will require members to ensure they: ● have the requisite skills and documentation to take on the appointment to undertake the valuation of the funeral plan trust; ● have the right information-

gathering and escalation measures available to them to undertake appropriately the valuation of the assets and liabilities of the funeral plan trust; ● are aware of planholders’ contractual entitlements, to ensure that there are adequate systems of control in place intended to ensure that planholders are not misled as to their expectations; ● report any concerns to the most appropriate regulator and/or to other professionals who may be involved in advising funeral plan trustees and plan providers if they discover that there is a material shortfall in the assets held by the trustees to cover the liabilities, or that the plan provider’s contractual

obligations exceed significantly the liabilities of the funeral plan trust.

Other guidance A Guide for Actuaries on UK Trust-Based Pre-Paid Funeral Plans has been produced for members working with funeral plan trusts, offering ethical and technical guidance. Furthermore, in conjunction with a trustee, we have produced a Guide for Trustees On Trust-Based Pre-Paid Funeral Plans to set out for trustees the role and professional obligations of members, with a view to enhancing understanding of actuarial advice and its implications.

For further information, email regulation@actuaries.org.uk

Membership team embarks on CPD audit It’s that time of year again when the membership team begins its annual audit of continuing professional development (CPD) and professional skills training (PST) records.

The team will randomly select: ● 10% of all CPD Category 2 members; and ● 10% of all student members, partially regulated members and members who are affiliated to another International Actuarial Association body for CPD purposes, who were required to complete Stage 3 of the PST in the 2014/2015 CPD reporting year.

If selected, you will be asked to provide written evidence of your participation in CPD activities that meet your minimum requirements.

If you have recorded more than your minimum hours, you will not be expected to produce evidence for each activity.

Some examples of acceptable evidence are: ● a signed register of attendance; ● a communication from the organiser of an event, which confirms your attendance; ● a certificate vouching for completion of a course or activity; ● hard copies of lectures or presentations delivered by you; ● articles or papers written for publication; ● written confirmation from another Fellow of the IFoA of your attendance at, or completion of, an activity; ● confirmation from the provider of an online resource.

We’d be happy to hear from you if you have any questions about the monitoring process or acceptable forms of evidence. Please send us an email at cpd_feedback@actuaries.org.uk

December 2015 • THE ACTUARY 11 www.theactuary.com

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News NEWS UPDATES FROM THE IFOA

TASs: rules, principles and enforcement Desmond Hudson, chair of the Regulation Board, outlines the practical implications of the shift to principles-based regulation

Much is being made of the shift to principlesbased regulation rather than a rules-based or more prescriptive system of regulation.

Understandably, practitioners are anxious to understand the practical implications of this approach and what it means for day-to-day practice.

Two recent cases (involving two individuals working in different roles within the same firm) heard before the IFoA Disciplinary Tribunal are among the first to consider interpretation of the Technical Actuarial Standards (TASs).

Importantly, they offer useful guidance and an illustration of what is expected of practitioners applying principles-based standards.

It is worth highlighting that there are two fundamental features of the IFoA’s regulatory and disciplinary arrangements.

First, IFoA disciplinary cases do not create formal precedents binding on subsequent tribunals, as can be the case in the court system.

That said, tribunals always aim to act consistently, while considering each case on its own merits.

Second, the test applied by tribunals – the offence with which members are ‘charged’ – is misconduct, rather than, say, a ‘charge’ of breaching a specific TAS obligation. This is a principles-based test as to whether a member has fallen short of the standards of behaviour, integrity, competence or professional judgment that other members or the public might reasonably expect.

The evidence relied upon in support of that charge will typically relate to a breach of the Actuaries’ Code, which, in turn, might arise

Adjudication panel reports: Mr X On 28 September 2015, the adjudication panel considered an allegation of misconduct against the respondent, relating to a criminal conviction for inflicting grievous bodily harm, contrary to section 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.

12

because of one or more breaches of the Actuarial Profession Standards (APSs) or TASs. Because the fundamental test – misconduct – is principles-based, it follows that, depending critically upon the circumstances, a number of minor breaches of the TASs may not collectively amount to misconduct, whereas a single but more serious breach may well of itself amount to misconduct.

The TASs are themselves intended to be principles-based. In these recent cases (bit.ly/1CzGUR0 and bit.ly/1IR1st3), the principal allegation relied upon to satisfy the charge of misconduct was a failure to discharge the ‘reliability objective’. That is, the principle that “users for whom a piece of actuarial information was created should be able to place a high degree of reliance on the information’s relevance, transparency of assumptions, completeness and comprehensibility, including the communication of any uncertainty inherent in the information”.

At the core of the case presented by the IFoA, and adopted by the Disciplinary Tribunal panel, was the principle that a member cannot simply apply a narrow rules-based approach to the TASs, without at least considering and testing such an approach from the perspective of the reliability objective. The purpose of the regulation, in other words, is to provide the user with reliable advice and information, not simply to ensure that specific TAS rules or particular tasks or requirements are complied with.

After hearing argument and evidence from both parties, the panel said: “The purpose of the regime of TASs and the reliability objective is to be principles-based and not prescriptive regulation. One must review from the top down, and not from the bottom up. When judging whether an actuary has met the reliability objective, it will be important to assess his work

The panel determined that the nature of the offence of which the respondent had been convicted was such that the respondent’s behaviour had fallen below the standards defined in rule 1.6 of the Disciplinary Scheme.

Moreover, the panel relied on rule 1.12(b) of the scheme in determining that the conviction of an indictable offence against the respondent amounted to

against the words of the reliability objective. In doing so, compliance with the TASs is likely to assist in concluding that that objective has been met, bu but en met utt u it cannot be inevitable thatt it has been met. If that were so, then there would be no need for the reliability objective at all.”

In similar vein, just as a principles-based approach calls for the exercise of professional judgment, members of the IFoA are not expected to apply a tick-box or superficial approach to regulatory compliance. For example, where peer or work review is appropriate under APS X2, there is little point in completing a shallow process devoid of a real and substantive opportunity for appropriate challenge.

Our regulatory approach, and in particular our adoption of a principles-based approach, at the IFoA aims to reduce the burden of excessively prescriptive or detailed rules and to focus on meaningful outcomes achieved through the exercise of judgment by individual professionals and those who employ them.

Ultimately, the Regulation Board believes, in common with most regulators, that a principlesbased approach will produce a better outcome, both for the profession and those who rely upon the profession.

Feedback on the IFoA’s regulatory approach is always welcome. Please email regulation@actuaries.org.uk

prima facie evidence of misconduct.

In considering sanctions, the panel noted that the respondent had reported the matter promptly and took into account the mitigation put forward by the respondent, including the impact on his professional and personal life and the remorse he had shown.

The following sanction was imposed: a reprimand.

The panel agreed that, given the particular circumstances of this case, there was good reason to exercise its discretion to withhold confidential details and anonymise the identity of the respondent in order to protect third parties.

A copy of the panel’s full determination, including reasons for its decision, can be found on the IFoA’s website at bit.ly/1WMjhF4

THE ACTUARY • December 2015 www.theactuary.com

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EVENTS AND CONFERENCES MOMENTUM CONFERENCE 2–4 December 2015 Bristol Momentum 2015 is the ideal conference for newly and nearly qualiďŹ ed actuaries. Providing you with an excellent choice of cross-practice sessions, technical workshops, networking opportunities and more, there will also be a number of Masterclass sessions covering essential skills for eective networking, presentation skills and techniques on how you can increase your personal and brand reputation through social media. View the full programme and range of ticket options online at bit.ly/1S4b8VS

CALL FOR SPEAKERS: HEALTH, CARE AND PROTECTION CONFERENCE 2016 18–20 May 2016 Liverpool The Health, Care and Protection Conference (formerly the Health and Care Conference) is the annual conference aimed at all insurance professionals. It explores how changes in innovation, technology, medical advances, the political landscape and other market movements will aect the future of insurance risk management in the health, care and protection markets.

Bookings are now open for this event at bit.ly/1PzVe6z

The IFoA has invited the PENSIONS, RISK AND INVESTMENT CONFERENCE Actuarial Approach for Financial WITH AFIR/ERM 2016 Risks/Enterprise Risk 31 May – 2 June 2016 Edinburgh Convention Centre The IFoA will be holding the ďŹ rst Pensions, Risk, and Investment Conference in May 2016, joining three large individual practice area events under one roof. Each conference will run independently as it does each year. However, in 2016, delegates are oered the opportunity to attend a variety of cross-practice sessions, get involved in a number of topical discussions and network with those from dierent specialisms to discuss mutual interests and experiences.

Management (AFIR/ERM) section of the International Actuarial Association (IAA) to join the conference, which will provide an ideal opportunity for both societies to discuss the latest challenges and successes in risk management and exchanging of ideas and best practices.

Register your interest for attending or sponsoring this event to Hannah Watson, event manager, by email at hannah.watson@actuaries.org.uk

Bookings now open

The IFoA Asia Conference 2016 3-4 March, Hilton Kuala Lumpur 3OHQDU\ WRSLFV MXVW DQQRXQFHG 7KLV GLYHUVH FURVV SUDFWLFH FRQIHUHQFH EULQJV WRJHWKHU DFWXDULHV DW DOO OHYHOV RI H[SHULHQFH DORQJ ZLWK UHFUXLWHUV VWDNHKROGHUV DQG DOO WKRVH ZLWK DQ LQWHUHVW LQ DFWXDULDO VFLHQFH 3URYLGLQJ LQYDOXDEOH EXVLQHVV GHYHORSPHQW RSSRUWXQLWLHV DQG D XQLYHUVLW\ VWXGHQW QHWZRUNLQJ HYHQW WKLV LV WKH HVVHQWLDO GDWH IRU \RXU GLDU\ 'RQ W PLVV RXW ERRN QRZ DW KWWS ELW O\ 2O VU RU VFDQ WKH 45 FRGH EHORZ

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2WKHU WRSLFV Ä‘ Big Data and Telematics Ä‘ Asian Economy Integration The workshop programme will cover all practice areas and offer Professional Skills CPD

www.actuaries.org.uk www.actuaries.org.cn

#IFoAKL16

December 2015 • THE ACTUARY 13 www.theactuary.com

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If you have any newsworthy items for these pages please email social@theactuary.com

News People & Society

A Mongolia rallying cry

By Felix Mantz To get away from it all, there is really no place quite like Mongolia – and the 17,000km stretch of road connecting London to it. Embarking on this 16-country journey in a rickety, non-airconditioned Ford Fiesta at the height of the summer may seem ludicrous to some, but for me and an old school friend it presented the adventure of a lifetime. Furthermore, it was a great opportunity to raise money for Cool Earth (protecting rain forests) and the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.

Some highlights of the journey included getting held up by the Turkish military at gunpoint, fending off endless Iranian hospitality, and coming eye to eye with the devil at Turkmenistan’s gates to hell. But the fun really started in Mongolia, where getting stuck in a river crossing, wrestling with our mechanic, and breaking down in the middle of the Gobi desert was considered a fairly average day. If all of this sounds like your cup of tea, then be sure to check out the Mongol Rally www.theadventurists.com/mongol-rally/ and donate to

uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/keepbreathing

Comparatively good marking

By Phil Edwards On a crisp Autumnal evening in mid-October, around 60 maths teachers attended a seminar at the Royal Institution to discuss an exciting new approach to assessing mathematics.

The event, sponsored by the Worshipful Company of Actuaries, was led by Dr Matthew Inglis and Dr Ian Jones from Loughborough University, and Dr Chris Wheadon from nomoremarking.com.

Inglis opened the seminar by highlighting the trend in mathematics examinations towards fragmented questions that offer a high degree of reliability in assessment, but do not challenge students to demonstrate deep mathematical reasoning skills. He argued that there is strong support in psychology literature for the idea that people find it easier to make relative, rather than absolute, judgments.

Jones introduced the ‘comparative judgment’ approach, applied to open-ended maths questions such as “why are negative numbers

14

useful?” Such questions, which are difficult to fit a conventional marking scheme to, are ideal candidates for the comparative judgment approach. Under this approach, a number of independent ‘judges’ (teachers or pupils) make a large number of side-by-side comparisons of student responses, simply stating which of the two answers they feel is superior. The outcome of a large number of such comparisons provides the equivalent of a ‘mark’ for each answer.

Wheadon then took the group through the workings of nomoremarking.com – a free online tool that enables teachers to make use of the approach. He demonstrated the results of a series of comparative judgements, carried out live, by ranking answers to a question that teachers had been asked to complete upon arrival. The event generated significant interest and discussion.

An event for actuaries to review the results of the broader research project will be held at Staple Inn on 11 January 2016.

Cheesy welcome

By Anique Buddhdev The annual SIAS welcome drinks took place on Thursday 29 October at the Staple Inn Hall.

This is an event designed to welcome all the new members to the profession and give them a chance to meet people from other companies.

Mark Gorman from the SIAS committee gave an overview of the activities we carry out as a society. Then Gilbert from Winfield Wines gave a presentation about the four different wine and cheese pairings, which guests sampled across the evening. The hall was buzzing with enthusiasm, as for many present they were just a few weeks into their first job after graduating.

We were delighted to have Robert Jelly from the education team at the IFoA give the students an overview of the qualification they were about to embark upon, and answer any queries they may have had about the exams. Committee members were also present to offer advice to the newbies. Joanna Gaudoin from Inside Out then spoke on how to network and make a good first impression, which was very informative, even for those of us who have been working for quite a few years.

Pooling their resources

By Anique Buddhdev The SIAS pool tournament was held on Thursday 22 October in Victoria. Over 70 people gathered to compete for the title of best pool-playing actuary in London.

SIAS had been given the entire basement of Rileys, allowing each team to have a guaranteed three games, regardless of their pool skills. The first round was a group stage, where each team competed to become table-winner and proceed to the next. The night became more intense as the knockout stage followed, with each player in deep contemplation for several minutes before taking a shot. One tiny mistake could mean the end of the tournament for their team.

For those eliminated at the group stage, this did not mean the end of the night, as many adjourned to the bar and enjoyed a variety of burgers and friendly games of pool.

As the group of best ‘pool-playing actuaries’ was slowly whittled down, we entered the cup final. Many congratulations to Paul Murphy and Eddy Martin from PwC, who were crowned this year’s pool champions after an intense best-of-three final game.

THE ACTUARY • December 2015 www.theactuary.com

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LIKE US ON FACEBOOK www.facebook.com/ TheActuaryMagazine

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @TheActuaryMag @ActuaryEditor

NWAS bowl away post-exam worries The North West Actuarial Society (NWAS) took to the lanes in October to bowl away any post-exam worries with its inaugural ten-pin bowling tournament.

Six teams, representing most of the major consultancy firms in the North West, battled it out to be crowned the first NWAS annual bowling champions. Buck Consultants’ team ‘Livin’ on a Spare’ got off to a flying start in the first round, with one bowler in particular enthusiastically hurling the ball down the lanes at almost warp speed.

Snapping at their heels for the top average score were Towers Watson, aka ‘Spare Me’, whose score consistency within the team am was impressive (indicating that perhaps minimum score variance should have been taken into account…).

New kids on the bowling block Mitchell Consulting trailed woefully behind in last place, which the team’s management blames on a cunning plot of sabotage. Indeed, one adopted member attempted to bowl in sunglasses after ‘forgetting’ his usual bifocals.

At the other end of the ability spectrum, one member in team Coop (‘I can’t believe it’s not gutter’) put on a fantastic display, claiming the top individual score of the evening of over 160.

Team Mercer (Gutter Fingers) took home the imaginary trophy of ‘Most supportive team’ with their vocal cheerleading routine.

Lastly, team La Incredibowls (PwC) Incre put out consistently good goo efforts in both rounds, despite their rou lane lan being rendered out ou of action for some time – this so however did not ho dampen their fighting dam spirit as they bought a round of b drinks and observed tactics elsewhere.

Well done to the Towers team ‘Spare Me’, who took home the 2015 NWAS trophies following an outstanding second round.

All change for the other half

By Jacky Pendleton The Other Half Club is a dining and events club. It was started decades ago as a way for the partners of actuaries to enjoy themselves while their ‘other halves’ were involved in actuarial events, seminars and functions Nowadays, we are in the position of not just enjoying ourselves with interesting visits and dinners but we sometimes even invite our husbands and wives to join us.

The club is run by its members, but there are ‘officials’ in the guise of a

chairperson and administrator. Every two years these posts are passed on to another member.

This year, I am moving aside after having been in the chairperson’s role for the past two years, and Lesley Dumbreck will take over.

So, goodbye from me and welcome to Lesley, who will now be working with our current administrator, Lesley Birse.

Lesley will in turn hand over to a new administrator in a year’s time. She is already forming plans for the next two years, and these

include a number of ideas for events going forward. A visit to Highgate Cemetery and then onto Kenwood House in April is already on the books, as is a return trip to the Chelsea Physic Garden in late summer.

Other activities could be a visit to the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court Palace, and a lunch to include Two Temple Place.

If you are interested in joining us, please get in touch with Lesley Birse either via email at

theotherhalfclub@gmail.com or by phone on 07812 803762

JOIN US ON LINKEDIN www.linkedin.com/groups/Actuarymagazine-UK-Group-3751335

Obituary

Frans Vergeest Frans Vergeest was an exceptionally talented finance actuary, who made an invaluable contribution to Old Mutual for more than 25 years, focusing on strategic finance projects. He started with Old Mutual as an actuarial bursar, formally commencing employment in 1989.

Frans was very influential in Solvency Assessment Management working groups and was also working closely with the tax advisory team on five funds tax implications for Old Mutual. He was one of the few subject matter experts in Old Mutual who understood and had great knowledge about our legacy, flexi and conventional products.

For many years, he was the treasurer of the Actuarial Society of South Africa, and he was also very well known in chess circles, where he achieved Western Province colours. He had a keen interest in astronomy and economics, particularly human economic behaviour.

Frans was an honest, brave and diligent man.

He was an amazing critical thinker, and for that, among many other things, he will be missed and fondly remembered. Our condolences go out to his wife, two children, father, family and friends.

Should you want to liaise with the family, please do so via Nico van der Colff.

Wim Els of the Actuarial Society of South Africa said: “Frans Vergeest, a Fellow member and former honorary auditor of the Actuarial Society of South Africa, was a very meticulous and dedicated professional, but always managed to make time for a quick chat about cricket.

He had a wonderful sense of humour, which often caught people by surprise, but always brightened up their days. Our thoughts and prayers are with Erika and the children.”

By Iain Williamson Frans qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and the Actuarial Society in 1993.

Deaths Mr William McCorkindale died recently, aged 92.

He was a Fellow.

Mr Eric W Braithwaite died recently, aged 95. He was a Fellow.

We would be delighted to hear from you if you have any newsworthy items for these pages. Please contact Yvonne Wan at social@theactuary.com

December 2015 • THE ACTUARY 15 www.theactuary.com

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EXPAND YOUR NETWORK – JOIN SIAS TODAY!

Check your membership has been renewed Following changes to the way renewals are processed, you may find your SIAS membership has lapsed in error.

Log onto www.sias.org.uk to check your status and renew to get your CPD opportunities and other SIAS benefits.

Welcome to members who have already joined or renewed for the 2015/16 subscription year.

To those who would like to understand SIAS better before joining or renewing, read on.

SIAS is the largest actuarial society with global reach seeking to meet the needs of: ●

all younger members of the IFoA; and

●

all members of the IFoA in London and the South East of England.

To achieve this, it organises a wide range of events such as: ●

monthly social events, including the hugely popular SIAS ball;

monthly continuing professional development (CPD) events at Staple Inn Hall, including the famous Jubilee Lecture; ●

●

hosting networking evenings, including buffet and drinks after talks; and

●

introducing actuarial careers to inner-city London sixth-form students.

SIAS’s members benefit from discounted ticket prices for social events, receive SIAS’s regular newsletters with information about its upcoming events and have access to recordings of its CPD events.

As a reminder, SIAS has discontinued its free membership offer to first-year students of the IFoA, starting from the 2015/16 subscription year.

MONDAY 7 DECEMBER

December’s talk Staple Inn Hall High Holborn London WC1V 7QJ 5.30pm

THURSDAY 28 JANUARY

PROGRAMME

Refreshments will be served from 5.30pm and the lecture will start promptly at 6pm. There is no need to register in advance for this meeting, and non-members are welcome. There will also be live tweeting available via #SIASDec15 during the talk – please do get involved with any comments and questions for the speakers.

SOCIAL

The SIAS pub quiz is back in 2016 to help you get over those Christmas blues. Teams must be of between four and six people.

Ticket prices include food platters, and there are prizes for the winning teams.

2016 SIAS pub quiz Venue: TBC

Tickets will be released on Monday 4 January.

Please see www.sias.org.uk for application forms. Note that tickets are limited, so please get your applications in early.

PROGRAMME

2016 SIAS social event and talk schedule

MORE EVENTS ONLINE For details of events, visit www.sias.org.uk

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For a full schedule of events, please see SIAS’s website – www.sias.org.uk

SIAS IS ON TWITTER! Follow us on @SIAScommittee for latest news on meetings, socials and more!

SIAS IS ON FACEBOOK! Check out the SIAS Facebook page for photos from the latest social events

THE ACTUARY • December 2015 www.theactuary.com

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FEATURES LIST 2016 Please note the themes for each issue are not exclusive.

The schedule is subject to occasional revisions. Please check with the features team prior to contributor deadlines for further details.

Contact: features@theactuary.com.

■ General insurance ■ Environment ■ Solvency II

Jan/Feb 2016

Published: Contributor deadline: Ad booking deadline:

04 February 2016 17 December 2015 15 January 2016

March 2016

Published: Contributor deadline: Ad booking deadline:

03 March 2016 18 January 2016 12 February 2016

■ Investment ■ Risk management ■ Professional development/Soft skills

April 2016

Published: Contributor deadline: Ad booking deadline:

07 April 2016 15 February 2016 16 March 2016

■ Health and care ■ Reinsurance ■ Life Insurance

May 2016

Published: Contributor deadline: Ad booking deadline:

05 May 2016 17 March 2016 15 April 2016

■ Investment ■ Risk management ■ Pensions

June 2016

Published: Contributor deadline: Ad booking deadline:

02 June 2016 18 April 2016 12 May 2016

■ Solvency II/Regulation ■ Gi/Reinsurance ■ Banking/Finance

July 2016

Published: Contributor deadline: Ad booking deadline:

07 July 2016 13 May 2016 17 June 2016

August 2016

Published: Contributor deadline: Ad booking deadline:

04 August 2016 20 June 2016 15 July 2016

September 2016

Published: Contributor deadline: Ad booking deadline:

01 September 2016 18 July 2016 12 August 2016

■ Reinsurance ■ Environmental risk ■ Modelling solutions

October 2016

Published: Contributor deadline: Ad booking deadline:

06 October 2016 18 August 2016 16 September 2016

■ Life Insurance ■ Mortality/longevity ■ Health and care

November 2016

Published: Contributor deadline: Ad booking deadline:

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December 2016

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December 2015 • THE ACTUARY www.theactuary.com

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On my agenda features@theactuary.com

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THE ACTUARY • December 2015 www.theactuary.com

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DEMI HUGHES

24/11/2015 09:35

Making

waves

Kathryn Morgan, director of regulatory operations at the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission talks to Jessica Elkin about power, responsibility and gender diversity One of the most telling things Kathryn Morgan says comes quite late in our afternoon together. During her photo shoot, I ask what advice she would give to new actuarial students.

Her first piece of advice is to just qualify, without getting distracted and wasting time. The second is not to worry about annoying people: “Don’t be afraid to make waves.” It’s quite a revealing statement.

With vivid red hair and even redder lipstick, you might presume that Morgan leads by example. She certainly isn’t timid or easily embarrassed. But neither is she loud or pushy.

Instead, she is quiet and softly spoken. Perhaps this is indicative of the innate confidence with which she delivered the first Monica Allanach lecture earlier this year. Entitled Sex in the 21st Century, it explored gender (in)equality in the profession and elsewhere. It’s a topic we return to, as our conversation covers gender diversity, her involvement in the IFoA Council, and her move to sunnier climes.

Morgan works as director of regulatory operations at the Financial Services Commission in Gibraltar, a role she clearly delights in. The regulator covers a diverse range of financial organisations, from the stock exchange to the bureaux de change. The position was new and it has given her plenty of scope to make it her own. It allows her to work within the chief executive’s vision while building her own.

This freedom is important, as she firmly believes that if you have been given responsibility you need the power to fulfil it.

“It’s no good having responsibility and no power, or lots of power and no responsibility.

They need to match up,” she explains.

After studying maths at university, Morgan qualified as an actuary at Norwich Union, moving on to a variety of firms before a 12-year stint at the Co-operative Group. She followed that by working in the policy and supervisory teams at the Financial Services Authority (FSA). It was from there she was approached and offered her current position. Morgan admits her career has been varied: “I kind of chopped and changed – I’ve worked on pricing, reserving, life insurance, general insurance, a tiny bit of banking, just whatever came along.”

A man’s world?

Gender diversity is a topic of special interest for Morgan; she has a teenage daughter and is concerned about the sort of world she will be part of. “When I started working in 1983, it felt like all the opportunities were open,” she remembers. She was convinced that by now, “the world would be a 50:50 place for men and women. The reality is that it’s not. I don’t think there are barriers there, but something’s not working quite right.”

Morgan points out that the conversation about diversity often revolves around childcare, and the assumption that it is purely a women’s issue. But she is quick to point out that men are fathers too. It is later clear she is someone who wants to champion marginalised groups, but in a calm and rational way – an approach that, as you would expect, is more effective.

Despite her own success, she worries about the way we raise our daughters. “I think girls are trained to have unrealistic expectations,” she tells me. The pressures to be slim and beautiful, to buy the right clothes, shoes and handbags, and to find a soulmate or the perfect man. Morgan sees all of this as unhealthy for women. “We need to think, ‘Actually, what is it I want?’ And then, ‘What do I need in order to get there?’”

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On my agenda features@theactuary.com

She is keen to stamp out the female tendency to be timid and apologetic, and acknowledges that women are inclined to be far more negative and self-critical than men. Her response to this is: “Stop! You’re behaving like a woman! This is not on!

You have to tell me the good stuff that you’ve done.” So within her own team she has imposed a five-apology-per-day limit.

“I read Christine Lagarde, who is amazing, still gets nervous before meetings, and still over-prepares. So does Angela Merkel. Whereas men, I think, are more prepared to wing it.”

Morgan’s approach to improving gender diversity would be to change attitudes at an early age. The only alternative, she accepts, is quotas, and this is a topic she is uneasy on.

“My head says no and my heart says yes. I’ve been working for over 30 years, and although it has changed, it’s not what I regard as 30 years of improvement.”

I ask if she believes women-only networking events, like the Lady Actuaries’ Dining Society of yesteryear (amusingly abbreviated to LADS), are still necessary. She recalls a conference at the Women’s Insurance Network, where all the delegates and speakers were women. “People just seemed to wait before speaking, not push themselves forward.” She compared this to an event where there was a man present. “It completely changed the dynamic. He just sort of took over!”

While acknowledging that this is anecdotal, Morgan believes that women-only events are “more of a safe environment for women. It just made it easier to network”.

A seat at Council Throughout her career, Morgan has had her fingers in many influential pies. While at the FSA, she was invited to sit on the Council of the Casualty Actuarial Society in the US, to offer an insight into the way the IFoA works in the UK. After three years of trips to the US, she began to think more about the way the IFoA is governed and how it interacts with members.

After sitting in on an IFoA Council meeting, Morgan decided to stand for election. Her thinking was: “I’ve got all this experience in the US about governance and challenge, and it seems a bit unfair not to use it.” Standing for Council stemmed from a desire to “focus on the way the IFoA’s governed and make sure it is in accordance with good practice and with what members might want”.

She got involved in the project to rewrite the IFoA’s governance manual and found her experience in the States to be of use. “I noticed quite a lot of the discussions we had seemed to fizzle out without coming to a conclusion. So I’d ask for more votes or clarity on decisions that we’d made.

In America, everything we did we voted on.”

A key concern is to get better representation for actuaries

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living outside major locations such as London and China, a preoccupation that probably stems from her experiences in Manchester and Gibraltar. “They all need some level of support,” she says. “I’m not saying I don’t get support in Gibraltar – I do. But I think it’s very easy to get seduced by the glamour of China, and forget that we’ve got a whole bunch of people in Manchester, Bristol, Norwich, York and Leeds.”

Morgan is concerned about members of the profession staying actively involved: “People do their CPD, but are they really doing it just by turning up at sessional meetings?” She believes engagement is a core part of being a professional, recounting how a friend advised her to always visit a young dentist, because they’re the ones straight out of university and know all the latest techniques. “So what we’ve done as a profession, to counter the adage of ‘don’t go to an old actuary’, is the CPD scheme. But if people don’t take it seriously, then they aren’t going to stay up to date, are they?”

Home away from home Morgan has been working in Gibraltar for just over a year.

Previously her life had been somewhat complicated, living in Manchester with her family while working in London for four days a week for seven years. She relishes the opportunity for more family time. Of Gibraltar, she says: “It’s a really nice place to live. It’s a bit like Britain in the 1970s, and the whole jurisdiction only has 32,000 people, so there’s a real sense of community. It’s quite old-fashioned, respectful – people really support each other and look out for each other.”

Gibraltar is part of the UK so it adopts the same European directives; but it’s a much smaller territory that makes its own laws, which makes it easier for the regulator to make changes.

Morgan believes this enables them to be more effective.

“Because we’re a small organisation, we can be a lot quicker at making decisions. We don’t deal with a lot of hierarchy.”

Aside from spending time with her family and getting to know the region, Morgan likes to keep active – she runs and cycles, and completed a triathlon last year. Occasionally, she cycles to Spain taking her passport with her. The route crosses the airport runway and she chuckles at the bizarreness of it all. “So you cycle over the runway, get to the border, show your passport, do your bike ride, and then the same thing on the way back. You only have to remember to speak Spanish when you’re there.”

During her recent lecture she had talked about how actuaries would be good in government, the possibility of having a 50% female Cabinet, and her admiration for Hillary Clinton. On that note I ask if she would ever go into politics.

She seems surprised that I asked. “That’s really interesting!

I suppose it has some attractions, but no. There is a lot of scrutiny, any mistake is pounced upon, and there’s no forgiveness; everything is very short-term. I think there is so much reliance on public speaking, being inspirational and all that stuff. I’m not sure I’d be that good at it.”

I’m surprised by her modesty, which seems at odds with her views, and her many achievements, which range from her regulatory roles and position on Council, to giving a public voice to gender diversity. And as for being inspirational, you cannot make waves without pulling others in your wake. a Kathryn Morgan’s lecture on Sex in the 21st Century is available to watch online at bit.ly/1DFHNPn

DEMI HUGHES

24/11/2015 09:35

Risk Model error features@theactuary.com

MAINTAINING MODEL BEHAVIOUR With Solvency II and increased regulation on the horizon, Roger Simler and Andrew Wood explore a holistic framework for assessing model error risk

Given the prevalence of models within the insurance industry, it is surprising that model error risk has not been higher on the agendas of insurance boards and senior management.

With the imminent introduction of Solvency II, this is about to change.

Put simply, model error risk is the risk that numbers produced across a company’s model landscape contain errors that affect reported results and management decisions based on them. More fully, it is the risk that the end-to-end modelling process is not fit for purpose, exhibits a lack of, or weak, governance, uses inappropriate or out-dated controls and may not respond to the level of recent change arising from Solvency II. Model error risk represents one of the major inherent operational hazards for an insurance company. Given the complexity of models and modelling processes, a coding error or a single mistake in an input parameter has the potential to cause significant financial loss.

Assessing model error risk requires consideration of all areas of an organisation

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that have a role in developing, governing and using model results. As such, any framework needs to reflect this enterprise-wide scope in its approach, and any assessment process should not underestimate the eventual reach and impact.

There are a number of different areas that combine to give an enhanced model error risk assessment framework.

Model governance, policies and processes An integrated set of model policies and processes are key to a robust model governance framework that can be applied across the enterprise.

Carrying out a detailed review of governance documentation is central to creating an improved and sustainable platform for future model governance.

The target state model documentation should include an appropriate balance between policies, standards and processes that takes into account the organisation’s approach to materiality and level of validation.

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Model risk appetite and limits

The wider qualitative aspects within an organisation, such as supporting management information, culture and the organisational model used can materially affect the embedding of new model risk processes. A review of existing management information flows informs the enterprisewide review and frames how future recommendations may be best implemented.

of where models lie and how they are interconnected. It creates visibility for senior management and the board in respect of the controls that are being relied upon.

The benefits to senior management are immediate and, in some cases, significant in visualising where potential aggregated risk lies across the business and how the balance sheet numbers flow through a number of diverse models and environments.

Given the need to provide a focus for organisational change it is critical to develop quantitative criteria from which to score models within the inventory.

A robust risk-scoring methodology enables models to be ranked and any required change to be implemented in order of importance to the business. Such scoring methods should recognise all the key risk components within the end-to-end model process and not just the qualitative aspects of model coding and fitting.

Evaluation of key models

Review and test of controls

Creating a model inventory across an organisation enables a clear understanding

Lastly, a review of the existing control environment measures the impact of current

While most organisations have articulated their risk appetite with respect to credit, market and insurance risk, it is less common to find an articulated risk appetite statement for model risk. Producing such a statement ensures clarity is created around the level and type of risk that the organisation is willing to tolerate and the links between appetite, tolerance and limit management at model level.

Supporting process

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ROGER SIMLER (left) is a partner and ANDREW WOOD (right) is a senior manager in Deloitte’s insurance practice

controls against the findings of the enterprise-wide review. This enables new preventative and detective controls to be proposed, mitigating the major risk areas identified throughout the process.

“The level of change required to improve control of the modelling environment should not be underestimated”

Typical challenges The application of such a holistic framework for assessing model error risk often gives rise to a number of new challenges.

When considering the consistent application of policies and standards across the enterprise, it may be necessary for significant top-down communication to drive buy-in and increased levels of education around model risk itself.

The divergence in existing practices between business areas such as reporting or pricing departments can lead to friction in adopting new and consistent model governance and management policies.

Allowance will need to be made for the differing needs and risks in each area.

The aggregation of model risk appetite and limit considerations needs to be handled with caution, bearing in mind the driving purpose of the exercise and how these metrics will be used in the risk committee.

Reserving models, in particular, can dominate and swamp any smaller tolerance limits applicable to pricing or investment models, reducing the impact of aggregated

An ongoing process

Framework assessment

Figure 1: Model error risk assessment framework

Model governance, policies and processes Model risk appetite and limits

Enterprisewide assessment

Gap analysis

Management information, culture and operating model

Risk model inventory

Risk criteria

Evaluate models

reports and weakening the ability of management to identify and respond to issues. Hidden cultural challenges may exist for companies where the maturity of model governance, model risk appetite and limit management is not as high as it might be.

Weaknesses in model risk awareness may lead to situations where results are accepted without sufficient challenge and review.

Lastly, the production of a centralised model inventory is key to the ongoing embedding of model risk management.

However, obtaining clarity across the organisation as to the definition of a model and the appropriate level of materiality for inclusion is not to be underestimated.

Without a common taxonomy and clear communication, there is a high risk of misunderstanding and incorrect classification.

Model assessment Identification of high-risk models

Review and test controls

A model risk assessment framework provides insight and awareness of model risk across the organisation and provides risk and audit functions with clear route maps to support ongoing, regular reviews.

Most importantly, it provides a proportional focused management plan to reduce model risk.

The process of creating and adopting a model error risk assessment framework is not easy and introduces challenges across any organisation. The level of change required to improve control of the modelling environment should not be underestimated.

To maximise the return from the investment in such a development, it is important to ensure that the output from the model risk assessment – and developments such as the model inventory – is a Deliver living, breathing process enhanced that is adopted and model maintained across the business. governance If this is achieved, it drives model risk reduction and effectively supports all lines of defence in producing, overseeing and challenging models, validation and their associated processes. a

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Risk Operational strategy f t features@theactuary.com @th t

Getting to grips with risk p24_26_dec_ERM•CT.indd 24

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BRENDA BOULTWOOD

is senior vice-president at MetricStream

It is difficult to assess all sources of enterprise risk, says Brenda Boultwood, but it is vital if a company wants to demonstrate sound decision-making During the course of the past two decades, the financial sector has shown great progress in understanding and quantifying credit and market risk. But operational risk – which some experts estimate may be 70%-80% of a regional bank’s total risk capital – is still not well understood or quantified. Operational risks are qualitative, inconsistently defined and often poorly identified. New techniques are emerging that allow operational risk appetite to be monitored and effectively reflected in the strategy and business plans of a company. These techniques include complete risk identification, conversion of qualitative risks into measurable units, predictive risk analytics that provide early warning signals on loss events, and metrics thresholds that trigger notifications and actions, including changing the level of risk-taking.

Qualitative risk: the new frontier Regulators require banks to develop operational risk frameworks, just as banks have to do for market risk and credit risk.

The expected levels of operational risk should be established, and consistent with strategic objectives. Organisations must specify the type of data and the frequency with which they will assess their risk events.

A great deal of work is being done now to make qualitative risk more quantitative, but it is still more art than science. For example, if a bank’s deposit system is down, this leads to customer or business disruptions, and there is the financial loss of incomplete

IKON

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transactions on that particular day. There is also a more subtle loss of reputation when the customer chooses to negotiate their next loan with a bank whose systems are more reliable.

Banks are starting to collect information about these kinds of risk events. They are doing more risk assessments and are asking people in the field: how do we assess the quality of our risk and control environment?

Companies are also thinking about risk metrics because they want more rigour as they establish a more quantitative basis for qualitative risks. Management should decide on a set of metrics, which will then be monitored for breach of pre-assigned levels.

Take an example Consider the risk of employee attrition.

Part of mitigating this operational risk requires having strong human resources, involving how to attract, train and motivate employees with valuable skills. The risk of employee attrition can be quantified as the percentage of unintended employee turnover, transforming something once qualitative into something measurable.

The first stage of mitigating this risk is to start with a baseline to normalise observations. This can help the company measure the impact of loss owing to lack of well-trained employees. Although ‘employee turnover’ can be calculated and modelled, how can its actual impact be measured? If departing employees know the internal processes intimately and have forged connections with customers, the amount of monetary loss is rather difficult to quantify.

December November 2015 • THE ACTUARY www.theactuary.com

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Risk appetite linked to strategy

“There’s a silver lining to risk events; fresh data points. Information before, during and after risk events can be captured” Additionally, we must keep in mind the costs required to recruit and train new employees.

A quantitative risk such as market risk is understood in terms of value-at-risk (VaR).

When a certain VaR level is breached during trading, this triggers a message to senior management, who decide what response is needed – accept the higher risk, liquidate the position, or buy a hedge – and then report that to the board. For a qualitative risk such as employee attrition, the company would choose as its baseline an expected level based on history – for example, 2.5% employee turnover.

Then things change. Perhaps a new competitor starts poaching staff, and turnover jumps to 10%. The dashboard that used to show green at 2.5% now shows red at 10%. When a certain level is breached, this triggers a message to senior management, who – just as in the market risk case – have a discussion. Important questions must be considered, such as: “Is this an anomaly?”

“Is this the new norm?”. If 10% is the new norm, what is the correct response; more training, better policies and procedures, or more documentation of the skills required for that particular role? Perhaps more IT systems are the answer, because that would help automate much redundant work, and would also reduce dependence on what people are expected to remember.

The discussion around measuring this qualitative risk – establishing an operational risk tolerance metric for employee attrition –

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has now begun, and some tactical decisionmaking occurs. The board will eventually examine the breach, and the response thereto, in order to understand the impact on the organisation’s overall strategy.

A window into enterprise risk As companies grow and amass data, they become better at anticipating risk events. As a result, they can focus on better controlling their exposure, thereby limiting the potential for loss – both financial and reputational. There’s a silver lining to risk events: fresh data points. Information before, during, and after risk events can and must be captured for use by your organisation’s risk management, modelling, and analytics teams.

The data aggregation currently carried out by organisations is largely quantitative. It looks at values around revenue, profits, products produced, expenditures and more.

Data aggregation around new metrics – especially around qualitative risks – is more difficult to establish.

Quality data can permit operational risk-based capital modelling, which ties into determining risk and regulatory capital adequacy. In addition to economic risk capital, senior management is also interested in regulatory capital, balance-sheet capital, and rating agency capital. Stress testing and scenario analysis of key risks can also reveal any potential Achilles’ heel in desired capital levels.

Ultimately, the board has accountability to a company’s shareholders. Senior management is well aware that if a risk metric exceeds a threshold perceived to be normal, which is in line with past observations, management need an explanation. Is this a one-time event, or does this signal a trend?

With input from the risk management team, management will want to understand various risk implications that such data provides: does the organisation need a temporary plaster, or does it require a new blueprint? More controls might be needed, or the organisation might need to accept a new risk tolerance as part of its risk appetite.

Risk data, and the insights that come from it, can provide management with the real-time knowledge needed to continuously fine-tune the organisation’s strategy.

Use test analysis Regulators require that banks perform use test analysis of their day-to-day risk appetite.

A great way to assess your organisation’s risk framework is to try it out on a new situation.

Regulators want banks to be asking themselves what new risks are occurring, and how much extra risk capital those new risks could absorb.

Use test analysis should also be performed on potential mergers and acquisitions.

Although both parties have a legal contract, do they know exactly how the partnership is going to work? Do they know exactly how each partner is going to deliver?

Use test analysis also feeds into stress testing. Analysts should ask themselves: “If we introduce a new product/deal/acquisition, what are all the new risks that we introduce?”

The company can stress test different scenarios and estimate the level of confidence for what current levels of risk capital it could safely absorb if things went wrong.

A company has a risk appetite for both quantitative and qualitative risks, and both are needed to define an organisation’s overall risk tolerances and boundaries. Metrics such as employee attrition, the number of network security penetrations, the length of system down-time or the number of process failures are critical data points. These can help a company calculate its operational risk capital and compare that to its risk appetite, as ultimately reflected in a company’s capital and ability to absorb large losses.

No matter the industry, every organisation wants to invest in opportunities where the risk-adjusted return on capital is the highest.

Every organisation also wants to avoid those rare, once-in-a-decade, black swan risk events that have the potential to destroy their business. It is only by having access to quality risk data that organisations can be in a position to thrive on risk. a

IKON

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Modelling Machine learning features@theactuary.com

JUDGMENT DAY FOR PRICING Tony Ward provides an algorithmic framework for building generalised linear models using the field of machine learning

GETTY

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“Three billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war ‘Judgment Day’. They lived only to face a new nightmare, the war against the machines.”

In the Terminator film franchise, an artificial intelligence system designed to protect the US seizes control of the world and launches a global war of extermination against humanity. For the moment, thankfully, this is just science fiction – though it is understandable why, when we hear the term ‘machine learning’, that we immediately think of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Machine learning is, in fact, a bonafide academic field of study. It is a subfield of computer science, and focuses on the development of computer programmes, or algorithms, that can teach themselves to learn or grow when exposed to new data.

It is a relatively new field, but has rapidly gained in

December 2015 • THE ACTUARY www.theactuary.com

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“Generalised linear models have become the default modelling method for claims costs, and are also widely used in renewal, conversion and lapse modelling” min − l(β|X,Y)

Table 1: Document term matrix for commercial lines claim data

β0,β

Damage

Impact

Shop

Water

1

1

1

0

0

0

0

1

Impact damage to shop canopy – TP unknown Water leak from bath Impact damage Leakage of water on laminate floor

popularity, with applications including: spam detection, speech recognition, recommendation algorithms, such as those used by Amazon, and autonomous driving cars.

Algorithmic pricing In the 1990s, British actuaries introduced generalised linear models (GLMs) as tools for analysing insurance data. GLMs have now become the default method for modelling claims costs, and are also widely used in renewal, conversion and lapse modelling.

This article presents an algorithmic framework for building GLMs, using Lasso (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator) regression – a predictive modelling technique taken from the machine learning community. The framework retains the familiar components of a GLM (linear predictor, link function, error term), but allows us to fit models in an automated way. This allows us to test unstructured text data such as underwriter notes or social media activity in our pricing models. All code and data used here have been made freely available at www.statcore.co.uk.

Motivating example: salary prediction TheActuaryJobs.com is the official job board for the actuarial profession. At the time of writing, there were 757 live jobs listed, covering a wide range of experience levels, sectors and locations. Fortunately, the structure of the website meant that it was relatively straightforward to scrape all 27,786 historic job advertisements. Each advert contains information relating to the position, such as: www.theactuaryjobs.com/job/39181 Our goal is to use the information provided in the job description to predict the probability that a given job advertisement pays more than £70,000. The information in the advert is a mixture of structured and unstructured text data, and we would like to test both data types in our model.

The first step is to convert the unstructured text into a document term matrix – a tabular form with columns indicating the presence or absence of words. In The Actuary, May 2011, my colleague, Alan Chalk and I, presented a

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1

1

0

0

0

0

0

1

demonstration of this technique on a commercial lines claims dataset, to extract information from the loss adjustor notes (see Table 1, above). Once we apply this technique to the ‘job title’ and ‘further info’ variables, we obtain a modelling dataset with the following dimensions (see Table 2, below).

Where β0 is the intercept term, β is the vector of model relatives and l(β |X,Y) is the log likelihood.

The main idea behind regularisation is to penalise complex models. This is achieved by defining a penalty function to quantify the complexity of the model – more complex models will have a greater penalty associated with them. Since the process of fitting a GLM can be considered an optimisation problem where a loss function is minimised, we can add the penalty term and minimise the whole expression together. Lasso regression shrinks the regression coefficients by imposing a L1 norm penalty on their size.

Σ

Table 2: Modelling dataset Rating factor

Levels

Experience

7

Sector

14

Country

89

City

99

Job title

189

Further info

691

Model complexity: Man vs machine During the modelling phase, we must decide on an appropriate degree of model complexity.

How many variables should we include in the model? When we include categorical variables, should we group any levels with each other?

Should we fit a curve to our numeric variables?

If so, what should that curve look like?

Typically, these decisions are taken by an actuary, who uses statistical and consistency tests together with common sense and experience to arrive at a final model. However, this approach simply does not scale very well.

As the number of candidate rating factors increases, the number of potential models increases exponentially. This leads to much longer model build-times, and an increased risk of finding a sub-optimal model.

Testing unstructured data presents a new challenge. Since the number of parameters being estimated often runs into the thousands, we need an alternative approach to determine model complexity. That approach is regularisation.

Regularisation and the lasso When we fit a GLM, the model parameters are calculated by maximum likelihood estimation.

In practice, we minimise the negative of the log likelihood, which is equivalent.

p j=1

lβj|≤t

Models are estimated by penalised maximum likelihood,

min − β0,β

1 (β|X,Y) + λ N

Σ |β | j

j=1

where l(β|X,Y) is the log likelihood defined previously and λ ≥ 0 is a complexity parameter that controls the amount of shrinkage in the parameter estimates: the larger the value of λ, the greater the amount of shrinkage, which means smaller parameter estimates. Notice that, since β0 is not present in the penalty function, the intercept term is left unconstrained. The optimal λ is estimated from the training data using k-fold cross validation.

It turns out that making t sufficiently small will cause some coefficients to be exactly zero.

So lasso regression performs automatic model selection. It scales well to wide datasets, owing to an optimisation technique called co-ordinate descent, which optimises one model parameter at a time. This allows linear models with arbitrary size p to be fitted, and is why lasso regression is so popular in applications such as genomics, where, for example, p = 40k genes are measured for N = 100 subjects.

Application: salary prediction Recall that our goal is to use the information provided in the job description to predict the probability that a given job advertisement pays more than £70,000. We set this up as a GLM with binomial error distribution, and fitted both a lasso regression and a traditional GLM using two rating factors – experience and sector.

The model parameters shown are on the linear predictor scale – a value of 0 means no effect and a positive value means a relatively high probability (see Figure 1).

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24/11/2015 09:45

TONY WARD is an independent consultant at StatCore, and specialises in pricing, marketing and data science

The red line shows the model parameters for the GLM model. The confidence interval for hedge funds (not shown) indicates that this parameter estimate is not significantly different from zero.

We now have a choice – do we leave that parameter estimate ungrouped, or should we group it with another factor level? These decisions are harder when you have limited prior knowledge about the expected relationship.

Lasso regression takes these difficult decisions away from the actuary by automatically deciding which rating factors appear in the model, and which levels should be non-zero. The lasso regression (blue line) has set several levels to zero, and has shrunk the remaining parameter estimates towards zero, especially in areas of low exposure.

Our benchmark tests (statcore.co.uk/ case-studies/algorithmic-pricing/) show lasso regression outperforms the traditional approach to fitting GLM models, especially where we have limited prior information on the expected relationship – for example, with geographic or vehicle group data.

Continuing with our modelling problem, we split the data randomly into training and hold out portions. Using the training data, we use lasso regression to fit several candidate models using combinations of the input variables. For example, model ESCICOJF contains variables ‘experience’, ‘sector’, ‘city’, ‘county’, ‘job title’ and ‘further info’. These models are then used to make predictions on the hold out data, and are assessed based on their deviance (see Figure 2).

ESCICOJ has the lowest deviance and is therefore selected as the final model. Note that this model includes the unstructured text field ‘job description’. To provide insight into how this increased predictive accuracy, we compare models with (ESCICOJ) and without (ESCICO) this variable, focusing on the highest predictions (see Figure 3).

Words such as ‘partner’, ‘director’ ‘head’ and ‘chief’ all indicate seniority, and words ‘expert’, ‘stochastic’ ‘remetrica’ and ‘esg’ indicate a niche specialism, which is why these adverts receive very high predictions.

We have presented a new framework for building GLM models in an automated way, using lasso regression, one of many powerful machine learning algorithms. Leo Breiman, the statistician and inventor of the Random Forest algorithm, said: “If our goal as a field is to use data to solve problems, then we need to move away from exclusive dependence on data models and adopt a more diverse set of tools.” a

Figure 1: Model parameters: lasso regression vs GLM

Figure 2: Hold out performance: deviance

Figure 3: Predicted values: job description

Thanks to Redactive Media for permission to use data from TheActuaryJobs.com

December 2015 • THE ACTUARY www.theactuary.com

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Reinsurance Emerging markets features@theactuary.com

GOING FOR GOLD With reinsurers increasingly turning to non-traditional sources of growth, Alexander Hanks asks whether they can find their El Dorado in emerging markets 30

The 16th century Spanish conquistadors searched in vain for El Dorado, the mythical city of gold. Today, faced with serious challenges in their traditional markets, reinsurers are venturing into emerging markets for future growth. Actuaries have an important role to play in ensuring that future growth is profitable and not just another elusive El Dorado.

The traditional business model of reinsurers is being eroded by the commoditisation of risk.

Where reinsurance was once a solution, catastrophe bonds are increasingly issued as an alternative. Initially focused on natural catastrophes in the US and Europe, the variety and geographic spread of catastrophe bonds are growing. New capital has poured into the reinsurance sector, putting pressure on rates, and in the absence of significant losses, this trend looks set to continue.

Hedge funds are attracted to reinsurance as a way of generating ‘investment float’ – and many of the world’s biggest hedge funds now have

THE ACTUARY • December 2015 www.theactuary.com

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24/11/2015 09:46

ALEXANDER HANKS

is a senior manager at EY in London

their own reinsurance vehicles competing for traditional reinsurance business. Yet another challenge for small and mid-sized insurers comes from the giants of reinsurance, Munich Re and Swiss Re, who have a powerful position in the market as they are able to offer clients the capacity that smaller reinsurers cannot match.

Faced with these circumstances, reinsurers have limited options for future growth: embrace mergers or acquisitions to achieve the scale to remain relevant; escape the commoditisation of risk by focusing on niche markets; or look to write business in emerging markets.

Challenges of emerging markets Reinsurers are increasingly focusing on emerging markets, and it is important that actuaries should be ready to support them in overcoming new challenges that are often quite distinct from those encountered in more established (re)insurance markets.

Consider the Argentinian default on US$132 billion of public debt in 2001, one of the most infamously difficult periods for emerging markets, and the subsequent currency devaluation and inflation that devastated the Argentinian economy. While not as dramatic as in Argentina in 2001, episodes of high inflation and currency devaluation continue to plague many emerging markets.

Such episodes present a significant challenge to the actuary trying to price future contracts from historical data. The rapid growth that many such markets have undergone in recent years has made this still harder. In many emerging markets, there has been a very rapid rate of insurance growth over the past decade, and it would not be unusual for an actuary to see data showing premiums as a proxy for

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exposure that have doubled in just a few years.

Ten years of actual experience data might only correspond to two or three years of data on an exposure-adjusted basis.

Property insurance is one class of business that requires particular consideration. Many buildings now exist on land that was, until recently, just countryside, and the quality of construction, the history of natural catastrophe events and the impact of climate change are all unknown. Flood risk is also one of the most important issues for actuaries to address, as climatic events like La Niña and El Niño can have strong impacts across a wide geographic area, leading to high rainfall and serious flooding in some regions and crop-damaging droughts or fires in others.

Building a credible flood model remains a serious challenge, and the companies that model natural catastrophes face a difficult task just to bring their earthquake and windstorm models up to the level of their more established ‘peak-zone’ models.

A further class of business that is widely used in emerging markets is surety insurance.

It provides a mechanism for governments to develop infrastructure with a degree of certainty that the infrastructure will ultimately be delivered.

In the event of a construction company failing to meet its obligations, the bond insurers have the option to step in and make alternative arrangements to fulfil the contracts or, eventually, to recompense the government financially. Brazil is home to some of the world’s largest construction firms, and the current economic turmoil and ongoing corruption scandals are prime examples of the challenges (re)insurers need to navigate.

Regulatory environment Reinsurers writing business in multiple countries can also be subject to the different rules for locally capitalised and regulated reinsurers, as opposed to foreign ‘admitted’ reinsurers. The capital work of an actuary becomes more complex whenever a new legal entity is established to write business as a local reinsurer. A new set of capital and regulatory rules must be followed and, depending on the circumstances, might require specific internal capital model work. Actuaries must be prepared to deal with a variety of regulatory environments in different countries.

Insurance is at varied levels of maturity in different countries and classes of business in emerging markets. This uneven pattern of market development is noticeable in the lack of consistent policy wording. Many policies require careful reading to understand the full extent of the coverage and structures being underwritten, so it’s critical that actuaries work closely with underwriters in order to understand the risks that are being covered.

Further, slow legal systems present one of the biggest problems for reserving actuaries in these markets. At the extreme, disputed claims could take more than a decade to reach resolution in some countries, and the possibility of courtawarded time-interest penalties could lead to big swings in final settlement costs.

The quest for future growth will present many challenges for reinsurers. Actuaries can help ensure that the pursuit of wealth in emerging markets becomes a reality and doesn’t enter the history books as another El Dorado. a The views in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organisation or its member firms

December November 2015 • THE ACTUARY www.theactuary.com

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BOOK REVIEW

Superforecasting: the art and science of prediction

by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner PUBLISHER: Random House Books ISBN-10: 184794714X RRP: £14.99

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Superforecasting is one of those rare books that provides a substantial amount of useful advice in an engaging way, supported by many interesting case studies. The origin of the book lies in research by one of the authors (Philip Tetlock) into the accuracy of predictions. Disturbed at the generally poor predictive capabilities of the ‘experts’ involved, Tetlock considered how forecasts could be improved.

This led him to set up the Good Judgment Project, involving around 20,000 amateurs interested in trying their hand at forecasting. This group formed one of a number of teams in a forecasting tournament run by the US Intelligence body IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity), which was trying to improve forecasting in the wake of the intelligence problems relating to 9/11, and Saddam Hussein’s (lack of) weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The large number of forecasters in the team meant Tetlock could experiment with various forecasting techniques and compare their results. This book is effectively a guide to the techniques that proved most effective – leading to his Good Judgment Project team beating rival teams (including professional intelligence analysts with access to classified data) by hefty margins. Space forbids a comprehensive account of all of those techniques – so do read the book. Instead, here’s a ‘representative sample’ of the main lessons.

“What makes these superforecasters so good is not really who they are. It is what they do”

Thinking about thinking: forecasters who had the benefit of Tetlock’s briefing instructions on better forecasting (circa one hour’s reading) scored around 10% higher than others – a modest improvement, but achieved at very little cost.

Break large problems down into components: probably a standard technique for most readers of The Actuary, and one the author refers to as ‘Fermi-izing’ – referring to Enrico Fermi’s challenge to his students to estimate the number of piano tuners in Chicago (best solved by considering components such as the number of pianos in Chicago and frequency of tuning).

Perpetual beta: successful forecasters embody this in two respects – continual updating of their forecasts, when material new evidence arises (trying to strike a balance between over- and under-reacting to new information); and a growth mindset, of always wanting to be learning and improving personally.

Teamwork: one interesting experiment conducted was to split the forecasters into solitary workers and team workers. The concern that team forecasts might be jeopardised by groupthink and inefficient group dynamics (loudmouths and loafers) proved unfounded, as the advantages of information sharing and mutual

challenge led to the team forecasters outscoring their non-team counterparts by a margin of over 20%.

Granularity: slightly surprisingly to my mind, forecasters who made very precise predictions did better than the ‘round numbers’ forecasters.

This reflects not only the mindset of the individuals (those making more precise predictions seem to have been more assiduous in their thought process) but also the extra accuracy in their perhaps spurious-seeming precision (taking the average of rounded precise predictions gave a worse answer than averaging the unadjusted predictions).

In addition to the various sections relating to technique, the authors also consider the type of individual associated with good forecasting ability.

Early on, the authors contend that: “What makes these superforecasters so good [is] not really who they are.

It is what they do. Foresight isn’t a mysterious gift bestowed at birth. It is the product of particular ways of thinking, of gathering information, of updating beliefs.

These habits of thought can be learned and cultivated by any intelligent, thoughtful, determined person.”

There is a slight sense of contradiction between this and later analysis of the optimal forecaster mindset,

THE ACTUARY • December 2015 www.theactuary.com

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involving such attributes as humility (not self-doubt, but humility before an infinitely complex reality), active open-mindedness (“beliefs are hypotheses to be tested, not treasures to be protected”), and pragmatism (not to be wedded to any idea or agenda).

Interestingly, advanced mathematical proficiency does not feature; good forecasters are numerate, and think probabilistically, but even those forecasters mentioned in the book with mathematical backgrounds use very simple methods to arrive at their results.

I recommend the book to anyone wishing to improve their predictive capabilities. It is particularly useful in the light of Solvency II’s focus on expert judgment, given how much more rigour insurers should be applying to this area than in the past. It is also a fascinating and entertaining read. ● Matthew Edwards is a senior consultant at Towers Watson. He is a former editor of The Actuary

MORE ONLINE Latest reviews at www.theactuary.com/opinion

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Advice Of a sort features@theactuary.com

actuary Dear Agony actuary h. m that only you can help wit I have a very delicate proble your mouth.

I have got my elbow stuck in Name and address supplied

Well, this is awkward. And it presents us with several knotty professional problems, which I will discourse upon freely for the next seven hundred words or so.

Firstly, it makes it very difficult for us in our roles as, respectively, adviser to The Waggledance Brothers PLC, and scheme actuary of the Waggledance Pension Scheme.

When I started my actuarial career, it would have been perfectly acceptable for the company and trustee adviser to exchange confidential information between their clients, and indeed it was almost childishly simple to do so, not even requiring any form of written or oral communication between the two parties. This is because the scheme actuary used to also be the company’s adviser.

This made funding negotiations, which would affect the employer’s contribution to the scheme, fairly chaotic. The scheme actuary would sit on one side of a desk and suggest a discount rate. Then he would rush madly round to a chair at the other side, thump the table, and remonstrate openly with himself about his excessive prudence. It was exhausting work, several actuaries died from exertion and, for this reason, it is now considered appropriate for the adviser to the pension scheme to be a different person than the adviser to the company in such matters.

The fact that you have your elbow seemingly inextricably stuck between my teeth renders us null and void as a brace of conflict-free Waggledance advisers. Either you will have to resign your position, or I mine. The only other alternative would be to employ a surgeon to render one or the other of us blind, and for the

other to communicate his advice to the client through the medium of written communication and/or dance. And I wish neither to go blind or to dance – particularly, the Riverdance, which, in my view, is more a form of leg Tourette’s than an acceptable set of dance moves.

“The scheme actuary used to also be the company’s adviser. This made funding negotiations, which would affect the employer’s contribution to the scheme, fairly chaotic”

I can also foresee a second difficulty arising from our regrettable elbow-mouth entanglement. It will become plain to you when I meet with the Disciplinary Board next week that I am considering making a formal complaint, over certain eccentric behaviour I have observed in you of late. I am not referring to the time you attended the Worshipful Company of Actuaries’ Halloween Party dressed as Mr Pickwick – such foolishness is par for the course at this event – but to the means by which you selected the discount rate for the 2014 valuation.

It is some time since I passed the exams, so I consulted a recent qualifier and she assured me that darts is not put forward as a valid technique for assumption selection.

The third difficulty we face is that our situation seriously hampers my ability to communicate with my clients and my staff, and these days communication is of immense importance. When I first started out, in 1903, there was not a great deal of emphasis placed on communication skills. Indeed, it was regarded as a badge of honour if you could baffle your clients with jargon. Now, however, they even have an actuarial examination in communication (CA3) and it is one of the five values laid out in the Actuaries’ Code.

Lastly, I think if we are to live out the rest of our lives in such close proximity to one another, we will have to work for the same employer and, being realistic, move in together. This will create a myriad of problems in itself.

For a start, I am on a three-month contract and my employer is unlikely to take kindly to a sudden departure. We are just about to enter the busy season, as five of my clients have 31 December valuation dates. I suspect you are in a similar position. And it may even be regarded as ‘poaching’ if I join your firm, as I note that you only left our company two months ago, and will have signed a contract not to cause any other staff to follow you.

All in all, having your elbow stuck in my mouth is extremely inconvenient for me and, I imagine, for you also. My husband has started asking questions too. I have, however, a simple solution to the whole problem.

Have you seen the film “127 Hours”?

Yours sincerely Agony actuary

December 2015 • THE ACTUARY www.theactuary.com

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At the back Coffee break puzzles@theactuary.com

Puzzles P l PRIESTS OF THE MODERN WORLD

PRIZE PUZZLTE TO H BROUGU BY YO AN MILLIM

Across 1

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BY NYLFIA

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This puzzle celebrates a 150 anniversary that occured in 2015

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Queen follows public gathering to give out about one from 1865 (8) Demands masks off to Hood (4,2) Doctor from US city, one from 1902 (4) Battle in which army releases rockets at Spanish leaders (5) Dean confused about irregular bits of epic poem (6) Capital Fellow follows unaided when hospital department leaves (6) Quiet living in a place like Lincoln, perhaps (9) Being analytical, I’m calm at hate crime (12) Bug found in new vessel (4) Association big with PM? (7) One from 1980 in small room with relation (7) A Greek character described in Central American language (4) One from 1870 so posited two in dispersion (12) One from 1866 in whom rests Levy distribution (9) Surly teenager gets left with one from 1898 (6) Eye part of turret in Arundel (6) Kingman, for instance, had measure of things? (5) Success taken from one from 1994 leaving retention of face (4) Canaanite general destroyed Israelites without modern light contingent (6)

For a chance to win a £25 Amazon voucher, please email your crossword solution to: puzzles@theactuary.com by Wednesday 20 January

36 Bit of sunshine brought to Manchester borough by one from 1876 (8)

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Newman involved in a rodeo with lover? (9) Spherical shape when dressed as Ringrose? (5) Complicated anagram with name for a mature woman (7) Message covering theatre turn lacking distinction (2,6) Reaction of salt ions a chemist (Cannizzaro) identified (9) Unrest fanned arson in California (3,8) Softer and is not included in iron resistance (7) Essential component of German city church (7) She is idle if employed by madam (5,6) Fancy bunches on end of bud?

(5,4) Investing in daring selection following leadership of Love (9) Old barrow boys in boats offloading American consignment? (6) One who shocks loose woman in heartless slander case (8) One from 1976 purveys audio from Society in America (7) Italian agreeing to King playing lyre is spoken of old, certainly (7) Caught interrupting draw for money (5)

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AKE 1 ANY

DOE | ESN | KES LYM D MAK D MAN D NG D OMI

HAVE YOU GOT WHAT IT TAKES? For information on IQ testing in your area, visit www.mensa.org.uk

1 SNO 1 STA 1 THE

For a chance to win a £25 Amazon voucher, email your solution to puzzle 651 to: puzzles@theactuary.com by Wednesday 20 January

THI 1 TUS 1 UAL 1 WHO

Questionable quote Mensa puzzle 651

PRIZE PUZZLTE TO H BROUGU BY YO AN MILLIM

Bridge puzzle 59 Where is the danger?

Love All, Dealer North

A well-known quote has been split up into groups. Rearrange the groups (above) to form the quote. What should it say?

TERMS AND CONDITIONS The prize will be awarded for the first correct entry drawn at random from those received before the closing date. The winner’s name will be announced in the next edition. Please note, the puzzle editor’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. We reserve the right to feature the winner’s name in The Actuary. Your details will not be passed to any third party in connection with this draw.

Number niggle Mensa puzzle 652

Alpha data Mensa puzzle 653

What number should replace the question mark?

What letters should replace the question marks?

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You are South. West leads ♥Q on which East plays ♥9. They are playing ‘count’, showing an even number.

Q1. Should you take the ♥K, or duck?

If you duck, West, who holds ♥AQJ10xx, has to decide whether to try to get Partner in to lead hearts, or knock out your ♥K. Assuming you duck, West tries to get Partner in and leads ♣5.

Q2. How should you proceed?

Q3. How should you proceed if West decides to play another heart to your ♥K?

♠ A6 ♥ 52 ♦ AK10743 ♣ KQ7

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♠ Q10932 ♥ K84 ♦ 95 ♣ AJ9

In good taste Mensa puzzle 654 Bidding Mint is the favourite flavour for Tania, Nathan and Mark. Orange is the favourite of Gareth, Nicola and Rachael.

N 1♦ 3♦ (1) P

E P P P

S 1♠ 3NT

W 2♥ P

What is the flavour chosen by Francis, Fiona and Claire?

(1) Needs 16 HCPs for this bid. Take away ♣Q and North should pass.

These puzzles are sponsored by:

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December 2015 • THE ACTUARY www.theactuary.com

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puzzles@theactuary.com

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Fuel crisis Mensa puzzle zzle 647

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T A O M A S K E

Congratulations to this month’s winner – Peter Black of Punter Southall

Bridge puzzle 58 No such thing as a free lunch

ANSWER: 16.333333 Congratulations to this month’s winner – Melvin Brandman

A similar deal to last month’s – but now you are sitting West.

Mountain to climb Coining it in Mensa puzzle 648 Mensa puzzle 649 A collection has raised £21.59. It contains four different denominations of coins and the largest denomination is £1. Unusually, there is exactly the same number of each coin.

How many of each coin is there and what are their values?

ANSWER: 17 of each of 2p, 5p, 20p and £1

Missing mystery Mensa puzzle 650 Place together three word bits in any order to give the name of a mountain range.

What number should replace the question mark?

What is it?

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© Nylfia

At the back Coffee break

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ANSWER: One. In each sector the sum of the two outer numbers is placed in the centre of the next sector moving clockwise.

Hoping to get a look at a dummy without a heart void, you lead ♥A followed by ♦2. Partner plays ♦10 (bottom of a run ♦KQJ10) which is beaten by South’s ♦A. South then leads ♠A, onto which East plays ♠J, and follows up by leading out ♣AK and... ♠6! Partner discards a club.

Having won what looks like a free trick, you are left with your last seven hearts.

Does it matter which you lead?

If so, why?

Bidding

W 4♥ (1) P

N P P

E P P

S 4♠

♠ 5432 ♥9 ♦ 76543 ♣ 854

N ♠ 98 ♠J ♥ AKQ87642 W E ♥ 1053 ♦2 ♦ KQJ10 ♣ J3 ♣ Q10976 S South’s play can be explained by his shortage of entries to dummy. With more than one ♠ AKQ1076 heart he would simply draw trumps and lead ♥J ♦ A98 a heart to claim his tenth trick with a ruff. ♣ AK2 However, he has likely deduced that your diamond and East’s spade were singleton, This is the hand after the sixth trick and thus that your distribution is 2-8-1-2.

South’s hope is that you can’t or don’t get ♠ 54 ♥ your partner in at trick 7. ♦ 7654 ♣8 If you play high at trick 7, you will take the N next trick because South will not ruff but ♠ ♠ will discard a club from Dummy and a ♥ KQ87642 W E ♥ 103 ♦ KQJ diamond from hand. Then on the next heart, ♦ ♣ Q10 ♣ he will ruff in Dummy and discard his last S

Lead the ♥2.

diamond. Dummy still has a trump left for the tenth trick. However, if partner is forced to overtake you, you will thwart South’s clever plan as he will take two more tricks in the minor suits and the contract must go down.

♠ KQ107 ♥ ♦ 98 ♣2

Bridge puzzle provided by David Lampert

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SHUTTERSTOCK

24/11/2015 09:49

At the back Student student@theactuary.com

Student In the manner of Rudolph’s red nose, Jessica Elkin gives some thought to lighting the way ahead with a new festive strategy for present buying

THE CHRISTMAS GIFT OF FORESIGHT When you’re a child, Christmas is a spectacle

Enterprise risk management

that takes its sweet time to come around, no matter how desperately you will it on with your tiny fists clenched. The sheer magic of it – all bright lights and breathlessness, and crunchy frost underfoot – taunts you for months. Months that feel like years.

The image of Frank Abagnale returning to his mother in Catch Me if You Can comes to mind – fugitive Leonardo DiCaprio peering in at a lovely Christmas scene with his messy hair and his hands pressed against the window… so close but just beyond his reach.

So it is, when you’re young and impatient.

As grown-ups, you simply have more to do.

I can hardly complain about my own plight here, being childless and single, but every year it gets to a matter of weeks until the big day when I realise I’ve barely done any Christmas shopping. By which point, I have inevitably run out of money. It’s almost a tradition.

Working in a field that specialises in looking forward, or “fortune-telling using maths”, as I like to sum it up, you’d think noticing that this present crisis occurs at the same time every year, and with the same timescales, would be within my ability.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. And yet, to misquote something else Einstein may not have said, there are limits to everything except the universe – and human stupidity.

I’m highly trained, so perhaps I need to apply my actuarial skills, sharply honed since passing CT1, to sort this all out. We are problem-solving people after all.

To start with the driest, most boring of tasks, I could keep an action log. Make a list of all the people I have to buy for, put staggered timescales in, and review my progress regularly. That sort of thing. I could call it ‘The Yule Log’ to give it a festive sheen.

PHIL WRIGGLESWORTH

p37_dec_student•CT.indd 37

As for the money problem, that has a simple cashflow modelling solution. Create a budget, decide what money I need and when (refer back to the action log), create a simple model against the interest I can expect from my bank account, make regular contributions throughout the year. The contributions would probably have to have their own account so as not to be absorbed by Christmas soirées, and the office vending machine.

To get the most out of my money, though, I’d need a sound investment strategy. Current accounts aren’t generous. I could match the necessary income with bonds, perhaps?

Or a liability-driven investment (LDI) strategy could hedge against present cost inflation.

The biggest complication is creative power, or a lack thereof. Could we model the likelihood of my having flashes of inspiration as to what to get my lovely but already well equipped family, within budget and the appropriate timescales? It would be some sort of negative binomial distribution, I imagine.

And there would need to be contingency plans in place for bouts of shopper’s block.

Practical magic The biggest problem with all of this is something I imagine to be a recurring issue in actuarial work. It may be theoretically sound, work perfectly, or look real swell on a graph, but it doesn’t actually help get the job done.

It’s rather like that joke about theoretical physicists and spherical cows (which has a Wikipedia page if you’re interested). The gist of it is that a physicist is drafted in to help a farmer increase milk production and, after a long drawn-out and complex project, he finally says: “I have the solution, but it only works in the case of spherical cows in a vacuum.” The solution is perfect, but reality is not – which is a shame, because a spherical cow in a vacuum would make a neat Christmas present. I imagine a sort of terrarium.

So there you have it. I can’t expect to be an expert in making financial sense of the future and Christmas gifts. I’ll just have to approach the dilemma the same way as other mortals; with a great deal of stress and inadequacy.

I should probably hit the high street soon.

It looks like another year for the Christmas Eve panic-buy… it is tradition, after all. a

December 2015 • THE ACTUARY www.theactuary.com

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24/11/2015 09:49

At the back Appointments

SPONSORED BY

peoplemoves@theactuary.com

Moves The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) welcomes Ann Muldoon to the role of director of actuarial policy. She will lead the development of the FRC’s strategy for actuarial standards and practice in the UK and its activities at EU and international level to monitor and influence actuarial regulation.

International General Insurance Holdings has appointed Simon Pollack as actuary to its London business IGI UK. Pollack has 20 years’ experience, having previously held senior positions at AXIS Capital, Zurich Insurance and HSBC.

having started his career at Towers Watson. He will focus on growing and supporting the company’s trustee and company client base in the Thames Valley and South East region.

Aon Hewitt has announced the promotion of Alison Gartside (below) James Patten, Ben Roe and John Sydenham to partner.

Gartside leads the corporate consulting

team in St Albans. She is a qualified actuary with 17 years’ experience, specialising in corporate pensions actuarial advice, including benefit design, scheme mergers, scheme financing strategies and corporate restructuring.

Patten (above) heads Aon Hewitt’s UK benefit

design team and leads the corporate pensions team in the Leeds office.

As well as advising clients on managing cost and risk associated with running pension arrangements, he is a key member of the pensions stability team.

Roe (above) leads the specialist liability

SAHIB SINGH KHOSLA Favourite Excel function?

Tausi Assurance Company, general insurance – head of actuarial function

Concatenate – bringing things together, like I do in my actual life.

What motivates you?

Self-respect and the infinite potential of the human mind.

What would be your personal motto?

It is what it is! (Everyone’s individual reality.)

Name five dream companions to be stuck on a desert island with?

My mother (for inspiration); my best friend (for comfort); my girlfriend (for affection); Dr Dre (for musical harmony); Albert Einstein (for his brilliance and... our survival).

What’s your most ‘actuarial’ habit?

Sorting everything into a select order before executing analysis.

38

ACTUARY OF THE FUTURE

Employer and area of work

Humorous, intellectual, thoughtful.

LCP has appointed Murray Blake (above) as consultant to its pension de-risking practice. He joins from Pacific Life Re, where he structured and implemented longevity reinsurance solutions.

Prior to this, Blake worked as a consultant at Towers Watson.

www.hfg.co.uk

Leo Ring joins PwC as a director from KPMG’s pensions actuarial team,

How would your best friend describe you?

management UK team, which advises clients on reducing risk and cost.

Sydenham (above) advises a portfolio of trustee clients and leads the trustee advisory team in Bristol, specialising in scheme funding, alternative finance, liability management and benefit design.

How do you relax away from the office?

Listening to and recording rap music; taking pleasure in all varieties of social events.

What is the funniest thing that has happened to you recently?

Failing communications exam CA3, whereas I can rap to an audience of a few thousand and ‘communicate’.

Alternative career choice?

Rapper or entertainment professional.

What song best describes your work ethic?

If you could go back in history, who would you like to meet?

My grandfather, a soldier of the British Empire under the King’s African Rifles Battalion. How different his world view would be!

If there was a movie produced about your life, who would play you, and why?

My life story is yet in its infancy, my thoughts unique, so I’d be best suited to be me.

If you could be anyone else, who would it be?

No one. An actuarial manager, enthusiastic lecturer, budding entrepreneur and confident rapper, all under the age of 30, from very humble beginnings – I’m a #GoGetta!

Eminem – Lose Yourself.

Greatest risk you have ever taken?

Pursuing an actuarial career in an undeveloped economy where business is transacted more on emotion than on acumen.

Do you know an actuary destined for greatness?

You can nominate an Actuary of the Future by emailing

aotf@theactuary.com

THE ACTUARY • December 2015 www.theactuary.com

p38_dec.AOTF•CT.indd 38

24/11/2015 09:49

www.theactuaryjobs.com

Appointments

A P PO I N TME N TS To advertise your vacancies in the magazine and online please contact: Emmanuel Nettey +44 (0) 20 7880 6234 or emmanuel.nettey@redactive.co.uk

Highlighting Opportunities HFG’s consultants specialise in matching you to the right role at the right company. Call us ǡ Ƥ Ǥ Ben Hickey GI Perm +44 (0) 207 337 8859 ben@hfg.co.uk

William Gallimore Director: GI Perm +44 (0) 207 337 8826 william@hfg.co.uk

Rupa Pithiya GI S2/Interim +44 (0) 207 337 1200 rupa@hfg.co.uk

GI Perm +44 (0) 207 337 1201 ̻ Ǥ Ǥ

General Insurance - Permanent roles

͙͋͘​͘ Ǧ ͙͋͛͘ ǡ

͙͋͘​͘ Ǧ ͙͋͘͝ ǡ

ǯ Ǥ Ǧ Ǥ ǯ Ƥ Ǥ For more information please contact: william@hfg.co.uk REF: WG1101

Ƥ Ǥ ơ

Ǥ ǡ Ƥ Ǥ For more information please contact: william@hfg.co.uk REF:WG1102

Ȁ Ƥ

Deputy Head Actuary

͋͞͝ Ǧ ͋͘͡ ǡ

Ǥ Ƥ Ǥ Ȁ Ȁ Ǥ ǣ ̻ Ǥ Ǥ ǣ ͙​͙͙͘

Actuarial Consultant

͋͝​͝ Ǧ ͋͞͝ ǡ

Ǧ Ƥ Ǥ

Ǥ ơ ǡ Ǥ Ǥ For more information please contact: ben@hfg.co.uk REF: BH1101

͋͘͟ Ǧ ͋͘͡ ǡ ǡ

ǯ

Ǥ

ǡ Ǥ Ǥ ǣ ̻ Ǥ Ǥ ǣ ͙​͙͚͘

Pricing Actuary

͋͘͜ Ǧ ͋͜͝ ǡ

Ǥ ơ Ǥ

Ǥ Ȁ Ǥ For more information please contact: ben@hfg.co.uk REF: BH1102

Ǧ Pricing Contractors

͋͘͠​͘ Ǧ ͙͋͘​͘​͘ ǡ

͋͘͠͝ Ǧ ͙͋͘​͘​͘ ǡ

Ǥ ǡ ơ ǡ Ǥ For more information please contact: rupa@hfg.co.uk REF: RP1101

Ǥ ǡ ǯ Ȁ Ǥ ͚ǡ Ǥ Ƥ Ǥ For more information please contact: rupa@hfg.co.uk REF: RP1102

Capital Contractors

͋͘͠​͘ Ǧ ͙͚͋͘​͘ ǡ

ǡ ͞ Ǥ

Ǥ Ǧ ǡ work. For more information please contact: rupa@hfg.co.uk REF: RP1103

+44 (0) 207 337 8800

͋͘͟͝ Ǧ ͙͚͋͘​͘ ǡ

Ǥ ͚ Ǥ For more information please contact: rupa@hfg.co.uk REF: RP1104

Ǥ Ǥ Ǥ December 2015 • THE ACTUARY 39 www.theactuary.com

ACT Rec Dec15.indd 39

23/11/2015 16:09

Appointments Ground Floor Pellipar House, 9 Cloak Lane, London EC4R 2RU | 0207 332 5870 | actuarial@mansionhouse.co.uk www.mansionhouse.co.uk

AC TUARIAL O PPO RT U N I T I ES , U K & EU R O PE

NON-LIFE

Samantha Yee yees@mansionhouse.co.uk

FRANCE/BELGIUM/LUXEMBOURG Dior Musombo musombod@mansionhouse.co.uk

FRANCE

Emmanuel Frossard frossarde@mansiohouse.co.uk

PENSIONS RISK TRANSFER VACANCIES LONDON From £50,000 to £150,000 + beneƓts + signiƓcant bonus

HEAD OF FINANCIAL RISK LONDON & SOUTH EAST £Highly competitive Remuneration + beneƓts package

NAT CAT ANALYST PARIS, FRANCE €45-55,000 + package+ beneƓts

SENIOR VALIDATION SPECIALIST – LIFE COLOGNE, GERMANY €80-85,000 + package + beneƓts

NON- LIFE SOLVENCY II ACTUARY PARIS c €65k + bonus + beneƓts

SENIOR ACTUARIAL & FINANCIAL CONSULTANT BRUSSELS € Excellent remuneration package

Due to demand from several key clients, both consultancies and market leading insurance companies, we are seeking individuals with a demonstrable track record in the Pensions Risk Transfer arena. The successful candidate will possess strong technical acumen alongside a strategic commercial skillset. Applications are welcome from those who are still studying for their FIA or CFA designation through to senior, qualiƂed individuals. We are particularly keen to hear from ambitious candidates who are looking to take their career to the next level.

Ref: bw24222

Global Reinsurance leader is seeking a NAT CAT Analyst to support the Head of Catastrophe Analytics. Working closely with Actuaries, Underwriters and Scientists as part of a multi-disciplinary team, you will assist with the development and harmonization of multidimensional Global Cat Portfolio metrics and analytics across the organization.

The role requires regular contact across global ofƂces therefore candidates must be excellent communicators, adept at dealing with key internal stakeholders of all levels. Willingness to travel is a pre-requisite.

Ref: ef24265

My client, a leading provider of Bancassurance throughout Europe, now has an outstanding opportunity for non-life Actuary with an entrepreneurial spirit to bring innovative ideas to the company. Candidates will have strong expertise in SCR reviews and calculations, as well as excellent communication skills in order to deal with key internal stakeholders, including Senior Management. A highly varied role, you will join a dynamic and growing team with excellent potential for career growth within the group.

Ref: ehth23933

Multinational Insurer is looking to appoint an experienced Non-Life Actuary for the role of Head of Financial Risk.

In this role you will be required to use your in depth technical knowledge to challenge the capital models, look at the wider picture, draw conclusions and make recommendations to Group - acting as the link between Finance and Actuarial functions. This is an exclusive role to Mansion House – please get in touch for a conƂdential discussion.

Ref: sy24213

A well-known German insurer is looking for a Senior Life Validation Specialist in Cologne with at least 5 years PQE. With a Masters degree in Mathematics or similar, you will have strong technical knowledge of life modelling, Solvency II Pillar 1 and be experienced with Prophet/ MoSes. Working independently as well as part of a wider team, you will take responsibility for the Internal Model, using your analytical skills to examine and review the existing models, making recommendations where applicable. Fluency in English is a must. Ref: jd23980

RISK

QualiƂed Life/NL Actuaries (IABE or similar) with signiƂcant consulting and managerial experience required for this Brussels based Professional Services Ƃrm. You will have a solid track record within Life/P&C and be well connected in your market, leveraging off your network to help grow and maintain the business. With a minimum of 5 years of experience you will be expected to take a leadership role generating, executing and overseeing work as well as mentoring more junior members of the team. Dutch is an advantage. Ref: dm23761

OUR NE WS

ACTUARIAL & RISK

Elodie Hong Tuan Ha Elodie@mansionhouse.co.uk

2015 has been an exciting and successful year of growth for the actuarial recruitment team at Mansion House and the business as a whole. This expansion will see us moving to beautiful new premises on Cornhill from mid December 2015.

We now offer full UK coverage with dedicated consultants in the GI, Life, and Pensions & Investments markets at all levels of seniority, both interim and permanent.

Outside of the U.K. we cover the majority of mainland Europe, with a focus on France, Germany and Benelux.

Our client base has continued to grow signiwcantly throughout the UK, to include key Life and NonLife insurers and reinsurers - consultancies, (boutique and multi-national), Rating Agencies, FTSE listed companies as well as a selection of Asset Managers and Banks.

If you are considering moving roles in 2015, or simply would like a conwdential discussion around career development opportunities, please feel free to contact a member of the team.

Ben Whalley Director

GERMANY

40

Julia Dunkelberg dunkelbergj@mansionhouse.co.uk

Mansion House are proud to be part of the Empresaria Group Best Performing PLC - Recruitment International Awards 2015

THE ACTUARY • December 2015 www.theactuary.com

ACT Rec Dec15.indd 40

23/11/2015 16:09

London : Chicago : Hong Kong : Singapore : Shanghai : Zurich

www.theactuaryjobs.com

Head of Actuarial, London hƉ ƚŽ άϭϲϱ͕ϬϬϬ н ĞŶĞĮƚƐ

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WΘ ĐƚƵĂƌLJ Θ hŶĚĞƌǁƌŝƚĞƌ͕ ŽŶƟŶĞŶƚĂů ƵƌŽƉĞ ƩƌĂĐƟǀĞ ^ĂůĂƌLJ н ĞŶĞĮƚƐ

KƵƌ ĐůŝĞŶƚ͕ Ă ůĞĂĚŝŶŐ ƌĞŝŶƐƵƌĂŶĐĞ ĐŽŵƉĂŶLJ ŝƐ ůŽŽŬŝŶŐ ĨŽƌ Ă ŶŽŶͲůŝĨĞ ĂĐƚƵĂƌLJ ƚŽ ƐƚƌĞŶŐƚŚĞŶ ƚŚĞŝƌ ƚĞĂŵ͘ tŽƌŬŝŶŐ ŝŶ ĂŶ ŝŶƚĞƌŶĂƟŽŶĂů ƚĞĂŵ ĂŶĚ ĂůŽŶŐƐŝĚĞ WΘ ƚƌĞĂƚLJ ƵŶĚĞƌǁƌŝƚĞƌƐ͕ ƚŚĞ ŵĂŝŶ ƚĂƐŬ ǁŝůů ďĞ ŝŶ ƉƌŝĐŝŶŐ ĂŶĚ ƌŝƐŬ ĂƐƐĞƐƐŵĞŶƚ͘ /Ŷ ĂĚĚŝƟŽŶ͕ ƚŚŝƐ ƌŽůĞ ĂůƐŽ ŝŶǀŽůǀĞƐ ŵĂŶĂŐŝŶŐ ĞdžŝƐƟŶŐ ĂŶĚ ĚĞǀĞůŽƉŝŶŐ ŶĞǁ ĐůŝĞŶƚ ƌĞůĂƟŽŶƐŚŝƉƐ͘ dŚŝƐ ŝƐ Ă ƌŽůĞ ƚŚĂƚ ŝƐ ƐƵŝƚĂďůĞ ĨŽƌ ƐŽŵĞŽŶĞ ǁŝƚŚ ƐƚƌŽŶŐ ƚĞĐŚŶŝĐĂů ;ĞƐƉĞĐŝĂůůLJ ƉƌŝĐŝŶŐ ƚŽŽůƐͿ ĂŶĚ ĐŽŵŵƵŶŝĐĂƟŽŶ ƐŬŝůůƐ͘ dŚĞ ƌŝŐŚƚ ŝŶĚŝǀŝĚƵĂů ŚĂƐ ƌĞůĞǀĂŶƚ ƌĞŝŶƐƵƌĂŶĐĞ ƐŬŝůůƐ ĂŶĚ ƉƌŽƉĞƌƚLJ ƵŶĚĞƌǁƌŝƟŶŐ ŬŶŽǁůĞĚŐĞ ĐŽŵďŝŶĞĚ ǁŝƚŚ ĂŶ ĂĐƚƵĂƌŝĂů ďĂĐŬŐƌŽƵŶĚ͘ &ƌĞŶĐŚ Žƌ 'ĞƌŵĂŶ ůĂŶŐƵĂŐĞ ƐŬŝůůƐ ǁŽƵůĚ ďĞ Ă ŐƌĞĂƚ ĂĚǀĂŶƚĂŐĞ͘ WůĞĂƐĞ ĐŽŶƚĂĐƚ ƵƐ ĨŽƌ ŵŽƌĞ ŝŶĨŽƌŵĂƟŽŶ͘ ŽŶƚĂĐƚ͗ ƉŚƵ͘ŶŐŽĐΛŝƉƐŐƌŽƵƉ͘ĐŽ͘ƵŬ dĞů͗ нϰϰ ϮϬϳ ϰϴϭ ϴϲϴϲ

^ĞŶŝŽƌ ŶĂůLJƐƚ ;/ŶǀĞƐƚŵĞŶƚͿ͕ >ŽŶĚŽŶ hƉ ƚŽ άϱϬ͕ϬϬϬ н ĞŶĞĮƚƐ

dŚŝƐ ůŽŶŐͲĞƐƚĂďůŝƐŚĞĚ ŝŶǀĞƐƚŵĞŶƚ ĐŽŶƐƵůƚĂŶĐLJ ǁŚŝĐŚ ĂĚǀŝƐĞƐ ƉĞŶƐŝŽŶ ĨƵŶĚ ĐůŝĞŶƚƐ ŽŶ ƚŚĞŝƌ ŝŶǀĞƐƚŵĞŶƚ ƐƚƌĂƚĞŐLJ ŝƐ ůŽŽŬŝŶŐ ƚŽ ĞdžƉĂŶĚ ŝƚƐ ƚĞĂŵ ďĂƐĞĚ ŝŶ >ŽŶĚŽŶ͘ dŚĞ ƌŽůĞ ŝŶǀŽůǀĞƐ ǁŽƌŬŝŶŐ ĂƐ Ă ƉĂƌƚ ŽĨ Ă ŐƌŽǁŝŶŐ ƚĞĂŵ ƉƌŽǀŝĚŝŶŐ ĂŶ ŝŶǀĞƐƚŵĞŶƚ ƐĞƌǀŝĐĞ ƚŽ ĐůŝĞŶƚƐ ŝŶĐůƵĚŝŶŐ ŵŽŶŝƚŽƌŝŶŐ ŝŶǀĞƐƚŵĞŶƚ ƉĞƌĨŽƌŵĂŶĐĞ͕ ĐůŝĞŶƚ ƌĞƉŽƌƟŶŐ͕ ŝŶǀĞƐƚŵĞŶƚ ƌĞƐĞĂƌĐŚ ĂŶĚ ƐƵƉƉŽƌƚ ƚŽ ƚŚĞ ůĞĂĚ ĐŽŶƐƵůƚĂŶƚƐ͘ /ĚĞĂůůLJ͕ LJŽƵ ǁŝůů ŚĂǀĞ ŽŶĞ ƚŽ ƚŚƌĞĞ LJĞĂƌ͛Ɛ ĞdžƉĞƌŝĞŶĐĞ ǁŝƚŚŝŶ ƚŚĞ ƉĞŶƐŝŽŶƐ Žƌ ŝŶǀĞƐƚŵĞŶƚ ŝŶĚƵƐƚƌLJ ĂŶĚ Ă ǁŝůůŝŶŐŶĞƐƐ ƚŽ ĞŶŚĂŶĐĞ LJŽƵƌ ŬŶŽǁůĞĚŐĞ ŽĨ ĐƵƌƌĞŶƚ ŝŶǀĞƐƚŵĞŶƚ ŝƐƐƵĞƐ͘ zŽƵ ǁŝůů ďĞ Ă ƉĂƌƚͲ ƋƵĂůŝĮĞĚ ĂĐƚƵĂƌŝĂů Žƌ & ƐƚƵĚĞŶƚ ĂŶĚ LJŽƵƌ ƌŽƵƚĞ ƚŽ ƋƵĂůŝĮĐĂƟŽŶ ǁŝůů ďĞ ĞŶĐŽƵƌĂŐĞĚ ĂŶĚ ƐƵƉƉŽƌƚĞĚ͘ dŚŝƐ ĐůŝĞŶƚ ŚĂƐ ďĞĞŶ ƐƵĐĐĞƐƐĨƵů ŝŶ ƌĞĐƌƵŝƟŶŐ ĂŵďŝƟŽƵƐ ĂŶĚ ƐĞůĨͲŵŽƟǀĂƚĞĚ ƉĞŽƉůĞ ĂŶĚ ƉƌŽǀŝĚŝŶŐ ƚŚĞŵ ǁŝƚŚ ĐĂƌĞĞƌ ƉƌŽŐƌĞƐƐŝŽŶ ĂŶĚ ĚĞǀĞůŽƉŵĞŶƚ ŽƉƉŽƌƚƵŶŝƟĞƐ ƚŽ ďƵŝůĚ Ă ůŽŶŐ ƚĞƌŵ ĐĂƌĞĞƌ ĂƐ ĂŶ ŝŶǀĞƐƚŵĞŶƚ ƉƌŽĨĞƐƐŝŽŶĂů͘ ŽŶƚĂĐƚ͗ ƉŚƵ͘ŶŐŽĐΛŝƉƐŐƌŽƵƉ͘ĐŽ͘ƵŬ dĞů͗ нϰϰ ϮϬϳ ϰϴϭ ϴϲϴϲ

>ŽŶĚŽŶ KĸĐĞ͗ /W^ 'ƌŽƵƉ͕ ĞǀŝƐ DĂƌŬƐ ,ŽƵƐĞ͕ Ϯϰ ĞǀŝƐ DĂƌŬƐ͕ >ŽŶĚŽŶ ϯ ϳ: dĞůĞƉŚŽŶĞ͗ нϰϰ ϮϬϳ ϰϴϭ ϴϲϴϲ

ŵĂŝů͗ ĂĐƚƵĂƌŝĂůΛŝƉƐŐƌŽƵƉ͘ĐŽ͘ƵŬ tĞďƐŝƚĞ͗ ŚƩƉ͗ͬ​ͬǁǁǁ͘ŝƉƐŐƌŽƵƉ͘ĐŽ͘ƵŬ dǁŝƩĞƌ ͗ Λ/W^'ƌŽƵƉh< >ŝŶŬĞĚŝŶ͗ /W^ 'ƌŽƵƉ ACT Rec Dec15.indd 41

December 2015 • THE ACTUARY 41 www.theactuary.com

23/11/2015 16:09

Appointments

EAT. DRINK. BE MERRY! Wishing all of our clients and candidates a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

Your recruitment partners at Fenchurch Associates.

OUR SERVICES, YOUR ASSET +44 (0)20 7256 9777 |

FOLLOW US ON LINKEDIN

ACTUARIAL MANAGER £85,000 Surrey I am currently recruiting for a Qualified Actuary. The Manager will take full ownership of many complex, allocated assignments. I am looking for someone who has experience in the sector of business development & can prepare fee estimates & budgets for client assignments & manages client expectations about changes and overruns. If you have experience in Reserving, Capital Modelling & Pricing you would be an excellent candidate for this role.

For a confidential discussion please contact Bradley on 0207 929 7667 or b.doyle@darwinrhodes.com

ACTUARY SPECIAL PROJECTS Up to HKD 1.3 million Hong Kong

WWW.FENASSOCIATES.COM

RISK LIFE ACTUARY £ to attract the right Candidate London

It is a good platform for qualified actuaries with 8 plus years’ experience in traditional life side to develop new exposure in actuarial field.

You will be a qualified Life Actuary within the past 5 years able to support our clients Head of Risk Measurement & Reporting in ensuring delivery of the risk measuring & reporting aspects of an international insurance companies Enterprise Risk Management Framework to facilitate effective & appropriate risk management across the business.

Management responsibilities & excellent career development, this is a fantastic opportunity for a qualified life actuary.

For a confidential discussion please contact Elwin on +852 3101 0461 or e.wang@darwinrhodes.com.hk

For a confidential discussion please contact Adam on 0207 929 7667 or a.goodwin@darwinrhodes.com

Amazing opportunity to strength actuarial skillset in M&A, ALM and RBC projects. Working in the direct insurer’s based in Hong Kong office, this jobholder will lead 5 people to develop and review most of the actuarial strategies under new standards.

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AN AWARD-WINNING SPECIALIST RECRUITER OPERATING GLOBALLY WITHIN NICHE AREAS OF THE INSURANCE AND FINANCE SECTORS www.darwinrhodes.com 42

London@darwinrhodes.com

THE ACTUARY • December 2015 www.theactuary.com

ACT Rec Dec15.indd 42

23/11/2015 16:10

George Bird

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www.theactuaryjobs.com ̹ Risk ή͜​͜ ȋ͘Ȍ ͚͘͟ ͛​͛͟ ͙͚͚͘ ̻ Ǥ Ǥ

Life insurance roles £55k - £80k basic, London Ǧ

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Solvency II Project Actuary

£80k - £100k basic, London + global travel

Strategy Actuary

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Interim CFO/FD (Actuarial)

£1000 - £1400 / day, 6 months, London

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Solvency II Actuary

£800 - £1000 / day, 6 months, North East

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£Competitive, London

Consulting Actuary

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£35k - £55k basic, London

Capital Actuary

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£800 - £1200 / day, 6 months, London

Investment Actuary

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Financial Reporting Actuary

£600 - £800 / day, 6 months, South West England

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Risk roles Group Risk Manager

£60k - £90k basic, London

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Senior Risk Manager

£55k - £75k basic, South East

A niche Life Insurer are looking to appoint a Senior Risk Manager to work Ƥ Ǥ ǡ Ƥ Ǥ Ƥ Ǥ ǣ ̻ Ǥ Ǥ ǣ ͙​͙͛͘

£30k - £60k basic, London

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Market Risk Analyst

£25k - £35k basic, London

Risk Analyst

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December 2015 • THE ACTUARY 43 www.theactuary.com

+44 (0) 207 337 8800 ACT Rec Dec15.indd 43

www.hfg.co.uk 23/11/2015 16:10

Appointments

Principal Consultant Leeds, ÂŁcompetitive On behalf of a key client, we are working exclusively on a search to ďŹ nd a senior pension consultant to join their Leeds office at a Principal Consultant level.

From day one you can expect to lead on key trustee and corporate clients, manage and direct junior members, develop business (both with existing and new clients) and be heavily inďŹ&#x201A;uential in the future direction of the business. The large size of the office and the pension team in particular, mean this position will give you the opportunity to branch out, letting you delve into the specialised work which you are interested in.

Suitable candidates will have signiďŹ cant experience leading on complex trustee and corporate clients. You will be proďŹ cient at delegating work and be successful at winning business.

Preferably, you will be a current holder of the scheme actuarial qualiďŹ cation and have leadership and/or managerial experience.

Contact: Simon Dodds, Senior Consultant simon.dodds@eamesconsulting.com | +44 (0)20 7092 3232

in

For more opportunities get in touch: actuarial@eamesconsulting.com

Jason Sykes Managing Director Â&#x2021;Â&#x2030;ÇŁ Í&#x2122;Í&#x203A;Í&#x203A;Í&#x203A;Í&#x2122;ÍĄÍ&#x203A; ÎŽÍ&#x17E;Í? Í&#x17E;Í Í&#x161;ÍĄ Í&#x;Í&#x2122;Í?Í&#x203A; jason@hfg.com.sg

Graeme Braidwood Senior Consultant Â&#x2021;Â&#x2030;ÇŁ Í&#x2122;Í&#x153;Í&#x203A;Í&#x153;Í?Í&#x17E;Í ÎŽÍ&#x17E;Í? Í&#x17E;Í Í&#x161;ÍĄ Í&#x;Í&#x2122;Í?Í&#x203A; graeme@hfg.com.sg

Tong Yu Consultant ÎŽÍ&#x153;Í&#x153; Č&#x2039;Í&#x2DC;Č&#x152; Í&#x161;Í&#x2DC;Í&#x; Í&#x203A;Í&#x203A;Í&#x; Í Í Í?Í&#x203A; tong@hfg.co.uk

Asia roles Senior Marketing Actuary (APAC)

HKD $1.5million + bonus Hong Kong

This dynamic and fast growing life insurance business is seeking to hire a talented individual to work on pan-Asia client strategic client development.

The role will span strategic relationship management, distribution strategy and Â&#x2019;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2018;Â&#x2020;Â&#x2014;Â&#x2026;Â&#x2013; Â&#x2020;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2DC;Â&#x2021;Â&#x17D;Â&#x2018;Â&#x2019;Â?Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x2013;Ǥ Â&#x160;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2022; Â&#x2122;Â&#x2039;Â&#x17D;Â&#x17D; Â&#x2022;Â&#x2014;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2013; Â&#x192; Â&#x201C;Â&#x2014;Â&#x192;Â&#x17D;Â&#x2039;ƤÂ&#x2021;Â&#x2020; Â&#x2026;Â&#x2013;Â&#x2014;Â&#x192;Â&#x201D;Â&#x203A; Â&#x2122;Â&#x160;Â&#x2018; Â&#x2039;Â&#x2022; Â&#x2022;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x2039;Â?Â&#x2030; Â&#x192; Â&#x160;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2030;Â&#x160;Â&#x17D;Â&#x203A; commercial and client facing role.

For more information contact: jason@hfg.com.sg REF: JS1101

Regional Chief Actuary

SGD $230k - SGD $300k + bonus Singapore

A renowned global insurer is looking for a Regional Chief Actuary to lead Â&#x2013;Â&#x160;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2039;Â&#x201D; Â&#x2030;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2018;Â&#x2122;Â&#x2039;Â?Â&#x2030; Â&#x201E;Â&#x2014;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2039;Â?Â&#x2021;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2022; Â&#x2039;Â? Â&#x2022;Â&#x2039;Â&#x192;Ǥ Â&#x2021;Â&#x2019;Â&#x2018;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2013;Â&#x2039;Â?Â&#x2030; Â&#x2013;Â&#x2018; Â&#x2013;Â&#x160;Â&#x2021; Â&#x160;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2C6; Â&#x2039;Â?Â&#x192;Â?Â&#x2026;Â&#x2039;Â&#x192;Â&#x17D; ĆĽÂ&#x2026;Â&#x2021;Â&#x201D;ÇĄ Â&#x203A;Â&#x2018;Â&#x2014; will be responsible for the corporate actuarial, product marketing and capital Â?Â&#x192;Â?Â&#x192;Â&#x2030;Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x2013; Â&#x2018;Â&#x2C6; Â&#x2013;Â&#x160;Â&#x2021; Â&#x2039;Â&#x2C6;Â&#x2021; Â&#x201E;Â&#x2014;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2039;Â?Â&#x2021;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2022; Â&#x192;Â&#x2026;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2018;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2022; Â&#x2013;Â&#x160;Â&#x2021; Â&#x201D;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2030;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2018;Â?Ǥ Â&#x2014;Â&#x192;Â&#x17D;Â&#x2039;ƤÂ&#x2021;Â&#x2020; Â&#x2026;Â&#x2013;Â&#x2014;Â&#x192;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2022; Â&#x2122;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2013;Â&#x160; Â&#x2022;Â&#x2013;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2018;Â?Â&#x2030; ƤÂ?Â&#x192;Â?Â&#x2026;Â&#x2039;Â&#x192;Â&#x17D; Â?Â&#x192;Â?Â&#x192;Â&#x2030;Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x2013; Â&#x2021;Â&#x161;Â&#x2019;Â&#x2021;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x2026;Â&#x2021; Â&#x192;Â?Â&#x2020; Â&#x2022;Â&#x2039;Â&#x192;Â? Â?Â&#x192;Â&#x201D;Â?Â&#x2021;Â&#x2013; Â?Â?Â&#x2018;Â&#x2122;Â&#x17D;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2020;Â&#x2030;Â&#x2021; Â&#x192;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2021; Â&#x160;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2030;Â&#x160;Â&#x17D;Â&#x203A; welcomed. For more information contact: graeme@hfg.com.sg REF: GB1101

Head of Actuarial Reporting

HKD $1million - HKD $1.3million Hong Kong

Â&#x2018; Â&#x152;Â&#x2018;Â&#x2039;Â? Â&#x192; Â&#x201D;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2030;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2018;Â?Â&#x192;Â&#x17D; Â&#x2018;ĆĽÂ&#x2026;Â&#x2021; Â&#x192;Â?Â&#x2020; Â&#x17D;Â&#x2021;Â&#x192;Â&#x2020; Í&#x203A; Â&#x2013;Â&#x2021;Â&#x192;Â?Â&#x2022; Â&#x2018;Â&#x2C6; Â&#x2013;Â&#x160;Â&#x2021; Â&#x201E;Â&#x2014;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2039;Â?Â&#x2021;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2022; Â&#x2014;Â?Â&#x2039;Â&#x2013; Â&#x192;Â&#x2026;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2018;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2022; Â&#x192;Â&#x17D;Â&#x17D; Â&#x201D;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2019;Â&#x2018;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2013;Â&#x2039;Â?Â&#x2030; line and assist Chief Actuary in preparation and implementation of other ad-hoc Â&#x2019;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2018;Â&#x152;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2026;Â&#x2013;Â&#x2022;Ǥ Â&#x2018;Â&#x2014; Â?Â&#x2014;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2013; Â&#x160;Â&#x192;Â&#x2DC;Â&#x2021; Â&#x192;Â&#x2013; Â&#x17D;Â&#x2021;Â&#x192;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2013; Í&#x2122;Í&#x2DC; Â&#x203A;Â&#x2021;Â&#x192;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2022;ÇŻ Â&#x2021;Â&#x161;Â&#x2019;Â&#x2021;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x2026;Â&#x2021; Â&#x2039;Â? Â&#x2013;Â&#x160;Â&#x2021; Â&#x2039;Â?Â&#x2020;Â&#x2014;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2013;Â&#x201D;Â&#x203A; Â&#x2122;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2013;Â&#x160; Â&#x2022;Â&#x2013;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2018;Â?Â&#x2030; understanding of risk based capital regulations and Asian regulations. Prior Â?Â&#x192;Â?Â&#x192;Â&#x2030;Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x2013; Â&#x2021;Â&#x161;Â&#x2019;Â&#x2021;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x2026;Â&#x2021; Â&#x192;Â?Â&#x2020; Â&#x17D;Â&#x2018;Â&#x2026;Â&#x192;Â&#x17D; Â?Â&#x192;Â&#x201D;Â?Â&#x2021;Â&#x2013; Â?Â?Â&#x2018;Â&#x2122;Â&#x17D;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2020;Â&#x2030;Â&#x2021; Â&#x2039;Â&#x2022; Â&#x2021;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x2013;Â&#x2039;Â&#x192;Â&#x17D;Ǥ For more information contact: tong@hfg.com.sg REF: TY1101

EA Licence Number: 14C7034 44

Senior Pricing Actuary

HKD $1m - HK$1.4m + bonus Hong Kong

This stand-out insurance business is seeking to hire a talented Pricing Actuary who has strong treaty pricing knowledge. This role is perfect for a commerciallyminded and client facing Actuary who is seeking a demanding but highly rewarding role which will liaise right through the CEO level. Candidates will possess strong communication and stakeholder management skills.

For more information contact: jason@hfg.co.uk REF:JS1102

Regional ERM Lead

HKD$850k - HKD $1.3m + bonus Hong Kong

As the Group ERM specialist this role will be integral to risk management for this fast growing regional Life insurer. Reporting to the Group Chief Actuary you will be responsible for the development and implementation of the ERM framework and corporate best practice for Asia. Responsibilities include chairing the internal risk committee and liaising with country heads in SE Asia.

For more information contact: graeme@hfg.com.sg REF: GB1102

Experience Analysis Actuary

SGD $85k - SGD $100k Singapore

Â&#x2018; Â&#x152;Â&#x2018;Â&#x2039;Â? Â&#x192; Â&#x201D;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2030;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2018;Â?Â&#x192;Â&#x17D; Â&#x2018;ĆĽÂ&#x2026;Â&#x2021; Â&#x192;Â?Â&#x2020; Â&#x201D;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2019;Â&#x2018;Â?Â&#x2022;Â&#x2039;Â&#x201E;Â&#x17D;Â&#x2021; Â&#x2C6;Â&#x2018;Â&#x201D; Â&#x2020;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2DC;Â&#x2021;Â&#x17D;Â&#x2018;Â&#x2019;Â&#x2039;Â?Â&#x2030; Â&#x2019;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2018;Â&#x2026;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2022; Â&#x2013;Â&#x2018; Â?Â&#x2018;Â?Â&#x2039;Â&#x2013;Â&#x2018;Â&#x201D; results of traditional and Capital Management lines of business; Produce high Â&#x201C;Â&#x2014;Â&#x192;Â&#x17D;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2013;Â&#x203A; Â&#x201D;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2019;Â&#x2018;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2013;Â&#x2022; Â&#x192;Â?Â&#x2020; Â&#x2026;Â&#x2018;Â?Â&#x2020;Â&#x2014;Â&#x2026;Â&#x2013; Â&#x2019;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x2013;Â&#x192;Â&#x2013;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2018;Â?Â&#x2022; Â&#x2013;Â&#x2018; Â&#x2039;Â?Â&#x2013;Â&#x2021;Â&#x201D;Â?Â&#x192;Â&#x17D; Â&#x192;Â?Â&#x2020; Â&#x2021;Â&#x161;Â&#x2013;Â&#x2021;Â&#x201D;Â?Â&#x192;Â&#x17D; Â&#x192;Â&#x2022; Â&#x2122;Â&#x2021;Â&#x17D;Â&#x17D; Â&#x192;Â&#x2022; Â&#x192;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2013; Â&#x2039;Â? Â&#x2018;Â&#x2013;Â&#x160;Â&#x2021;Â&#x201D; Â&#x201D;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2019;Â&#x2018;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2013;Â&#x2039;Â?Â&#x2030; Â&#x192;Â&#x2026;Â&#x2013;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2DC;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2013;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2022; Â&#x192;Â?Â&#x2020; Â&#x192;Â&#x2020; Â&#x160;Â&#x2018;Â&#x2026; Â&#x2019;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2018;Â&#x152;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2026;Â&#x2013;Â&#x2022;Ǥ Â&#x2013;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2018;Â?Â&#x2030; Â&#x161;Â&#x2026;Â&#x2021;Â&#x17D; Â?Â&#x2018;Â&#x2020;Â&#x2021;Â&#x17D;Â&#x17D;Â&#x2039;Â?Â&#x2030; Â&#x2022;Â?Â&#x2039;Â&#x17D;Â&#x17D;Â&#x2022; Â&#x2039;Â&#x2022; Â&#x2021;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2022;Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x2013;Â&#x2039;Â&#x192;Â&#x17D; Â&#x192;Â?Â&#x2020; Â?Â&#x2018;Â&#x2020;Â&#x2021;Â&#x17D;Â&#x17D;Â&#x2039;Â?Â&#x2030; Â&#x2021;Â&#x161;Â&#x2019;Â&#x2021;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2039;Â&#x2021;Â?Â&#x2026;Â&#x2021; Â&#x2039;Â&#x2022; Â&#x2019;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2018;ĆĄÂ&#x2021;Â&#x201D;Â&#x2021;Â&#x2020;Ǥ For more information contact: tong@hfg.com.sg REF: TY1102

www.hfg.com.sg | +65 6829 7153

THE ACTUARY â&#x20AC;˘ December 2015 www.theactuary.com

ACT Rec Dec15.indd 44

23/11/2015 16:10

www.theactuaryjobs.com

DISCOVER UNRIVALLED VARIETY AND HELP BRITAIN PROSPER QUALIFIED ACTUARIAL OPPORTUNITIES At Lloyds Banking Group our vision is to be the best bank for customers.

By putting customers first, keeping banking simple and making a difference together, we’ll help Britain prosper. Across some of the nation’s most prestigious brands, our Insurance offering is instrumental to that vision.

The rapidly growing actuarial team in our Bristol hub is at the heart of Insurance within the Group. From the flexible working environment, through to the scope our market position offers to make a positive impact on the wider industry, you will find a uniquely rewarding role here.

Our actuaries play a key role in shaping the success of the Insurance business.

So as well as working with all manner of Life and General insurance products, you’ll be involved in every process of the product life cycle – from setting assumptions and methodology, through to the design and delivery of change as well as analysis and reporting of results. Millions of customers will rely on you to ensure the products that they rely on are the best they can be – which makes yours a role that matters.

In return, we’ll recognise and reward your performance with an award-winning benefits package. One of the best in the industry, it includes a contributory pension scheme, private medical insurance, childcare vouchers and flexible options. You’ll also have our full support, training and opportunities for ongoing personal and professional development.

Discover more, contact us at

actuarialrecruitment@lloydsbanking.com

New Year... and a new career with LV= We’ve grown substantially over recent years and positioned ourselves as one of the UK’s leading insurance companies. We’ve become the Number 1 insurance company in the Financial Times and Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work in Finance and Consulting ranking list.

With exciting plans for the future, Actuarial is a hugely important area of our business. So why not take a PRPHQW WR VHH ZKHUH \RX ÀW LQ ZLWK /9 " 7R ÀQG RXW PRUH DERXW FDUHHUV ZLWK /9 SOHDVH YLVLW www.jobs.lv.com/actuarial Alternatively, please do feel free to get in touch with Chelsea Bain on 01202 754 737 or via email chelsea.bain@lv.com

December 2015 • THE ACTUARY 45 www.theactuary.com

ACT Rec Dec15.indd 45

23/11/2015 16:10

Appointments

pfJobs

PLAN YOUR NEXT MOVE

ON THE MOVE See latest job listings Create job alerts by email Save and email jobs from mobile Apply for jobs by saving your CV to your profile Keep track of your activity

Go to www.theactuaryjobs.com

INVESTMENT MANAGER MACRO AND CLIENT STRATEGY £40k to £65k + Bonus and Benefits In this role you will work across functions that are responsible for: • Economic and multi-asset analysis to support the asset allocation process • Formulating policies around investment strategy and overseeing the application of them to individual sections.

Duties: • Assist with creation of monthly strategy packs (identifying and writing about key investment issues) • Draft economic and market commentary for internal and external communications • Assist with production and maintenance of a suite of economic and investment charts.

• Input into annual strategic planning process (scenario analysis, qualitative expected returns) • Assist in the formulation and application of principles on section investment strategy • Generate bespoke investment strategy proposals for non-standard sections.

• Use stochastic asset-liability models to generate and interpret output.

• Calculate section liquidity tolerances as an input to investment strategy.

• Assist with drafting reports on investment strategy proposals.

• Provide additional support to other investment functions.

Suitable candidates must have experience of working within an investment management/ banking/ consultancy organisation in a front office role. This should include experience of using investment models e.g. asset-liability, risk management etc. You should be able to demonstrate broad knowledge of multiple asset classes and portfolio theory. Actuarial and pensions knowledge preferred.

Parvinder Matharu Newton Recruitment t +44(0)1689 862937 e parvinder@newtonrecruitment.com w www.newtonrecruitment.com Contact

46

theactuaryjobs.com is the official job board for SIAS and the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

To register for our Jobs by email service simply go to theactuaryjobs.com

THE ACTUARY • December 2015 www.theactuary.com

ACT Rec Dec15.indd 46

23/11/2015 16:10

www.theactuaryjobs.com

December 2015 â&#x20AC;˘ THE ACTUARY 47 www.theactuary.com

ACT Rec Dec15.indd 47

23/11/2015 16:10

Appointments N ON - LI FE RI S K

N O N - L I F E L IFE R IS K P E N S IO NS I NVESTM ENT HEALTH EXCLUSIVE - REINSURANCE START-UP

RESERVING DIRECTOR - NON-LIFE

£ very attractive package

£ excellent package

NON-LIFE LOCATION UPON APPLICATION

STAR2702

HEAD OF ACTUARIAL - NON-LIFE £ excellent package

NON-LIFE LONDON

STAR2807

NON-LIFE LOCATION UPON APPLICATION

STAR2814

Multiple roles for exceptional catastrophe modellers or pricing actuaries with strong modelling experience wishing to join a start-up reinsurer. Please contact us for more details of these career-defining opportunities.

Rapidly expanding actuarial consultancy seeks a qualified non-life actuary to take the lead on its reserving proposition, offering cutting-edge solutions and contributing to the overall strategy of the business.

Our client is seeking a qualified non-life actuary with strong technical skills to take up a leadership role with responsibility for capital modelling, reserving and reinsurance.

NON-LIFE PRICING LEADER

HEAD OF TECHNICAL PRICING - NON-LIFE

MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT

£ excellent package

up to £100k + bonus + benefits

£ excellent package

NON-LIFE SOUTH EAST

STAR2560

NON-LIFE SOUTH COAST OR LONDON

STAR2880

NON-LIFE LIFE LONDON

STAR2873

Major insurer seeks a qualified non-life actuary with excellent technical and communication skills to take up a leadership role within its pricing team.

Leading client with a unique approach to insurance seeks a qualified actuary to lead the development and implementation of its advanced technical pricing capability.

Global management consultancy is seeking exceptional insurance actuaries to join its growing UK practice. Strong influencing and consulting skills are required, along with broad experience of the GI and/or Life markets.

INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL ACTUARY

LONDON MARKET CONSULTANT

SHAPE YOUR FUTURE

£ excellent package

£ excellent + bonus + benefits

£ dependent upon experience

NON-LIFE INTERNATIONAL

STAR2874

NON-LIFE LONDON

STAR2738

NON-LIFE LONDON

STAR2871

Dynamic personal lines insurer has an exciting opportunity for a GI actuary with an interest in the financial impacts of Economic Capital and Solvency II to join its growing team.

Global financial services firm seeks a qualified non-life actuary with London Market reserving experience, strong communication skills and entrepreneurial flair.

An incredible career development opportunity for an exceptional non-life actuary with a broad skill set. Your wide-ranging role will include reserving, pricing, capital and risk.

LONDON MARKET RESERVING

ANALYTICS ACTUARY

ACTUARIAL MANAGER - NON-LIFE

£ excellent + bonus + benefits

£ excellent package

up to £85k + bonus + benefits

NON-LIFE LONDON

STAR2747

NON-LIFE LONDON

STAR2786

NON-LIFE SOUTH EAST

STAR2864

Syndicate seeks part-qualified non-life actuary with London Market reserving experience and strong communication skills to take up a new role within its growing team.

Our client seeks a qualified actuary with pricing experience and exceptional problem-solving skills to take up an exciting role within a growing team.

Leading general insurer seeks a talented individual with a proven track record in a nonlife analytical role to support the calculation of technical provisions for its Motor and Home accounts.

PRICING & RESERVING ACTUARY

NON-LIFE PRICING ACTUARY

CAPITAL MODELLING OPPORTUNITIES

£ excellent package

£ excellent + bonus + benefits

€ depending on experience

NON-LIFE LONDON / SOUTH EAST

STAR2858

Our client requires a general insurance actuary to join its non-life actuarial team. You will play a vital role in pricing analyses, quarterly reserving, and the wider business planning process.

NON-LIFE SOUTH COAST

STAR2862

NON-LIFE DUBLIN

STAR2754

Leading insurer has an exciting vacancy for a part-qualified or qualified non-life pricing actuary to join its team. Talented candidates without pricing experience or from a pensions or life background will be considered.

International insurance firm has a number of exciting opportunities for part-qualified and qualified non-life actuaries to provide support for and input into the Solvency II Internal Capital Model.

HEAD OF ACTUARIAL - WIDER FIELDS

LONDON MARKET CAPITAL I

LONDON MARKET CAPITAL II

£ excellent package

£ excellent package

£ excellent

STARVACANCIES NON-LIFE LIFE LONDON

STAR2872

Fantastic opportunity for a qualified actuary to take up a challenging executive-level role in a leading organisation. You will identify opportunities to apply actuarial modelling techniques to a wide range of special projects.

48

Antony Buxton FIA Louis Manson THE ACTUARY • December 2015 MANAGING DIRECTOR MANAGING DIRECTOR www.theactuary.com +44 7766 414 560 antony.buxton@staractuarial.com

ACT Rec Dec15.indd 48

+44 7595 023 983 louis.manson@staractuarial.com

NON-LIFE LONDON

STAR2767

Our client seeks a qualified GI actuary with capital modelling experience to contribute to the development of a new syndicate. The successful candidate will have exceptional technical and communication skills.

NON-LIFE LONDON

STAR2835

Take this excellent opportunity to join the capital modelling team of a London Market firm. The ideal candidate will have capital modelling and Igloo experience, along with excellent communication skills.

Joanne O’Connor

Irene Paterson FFA

Lance Randles MBA

Peter Baker

OPERATIONS DIRECTOR +44 7739 345 946 joanne.oconnor@staractuarial.com

PARTNER +44 7545 424 206 irene.paterson@staractuarial.com

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR +44 7889 007 861 lance.randles@staractuarial.com

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR +44 7860 602 586 peter.baker@staractuarial.com

23/11/2015 16:10

LI FE www.theactuaryjobs.com

ACTUARIAL POST RECRUITER OF THE YEAR 2012 • REINSURANCE DIRECTORS

£ excellent + bonus + benefits LIFE PENSIONS MIDLANDS

HEAD OF CAPITAL

£ excellent + bonus + benefits STAR2878

LIFE LONDON

£ excellent + bonus + benefits STAR2812

LIFE LOCATION UPON APPLICATION

STAR2751

Leading global reinsurer seeks a part-qualified or qualified actuary to provide analytical support for Financial Risk Management and Internal Model Governance reporting.

Leading global reinsurer seeks life actuaries to take up influential roles within Capital Reporting, Longevity and Protection. Excellent understanding of relevant subject matter is required.

Leading insurer seeks qualified life actuary with strong technical and stakeholder management skills to lead the delivery of economic capital workstreams, including the development of risk management policies.

LIFE ANALYTICS

ANALYSIS ACTUARY - LIFE

PRICING ACTUARY - LIFE

£ excellent package

£ excellent + bonus + benefits

£ excellent + bonus + benefits

LIFE LONDON

STAR2703

LIFE SOUTH COAST

STAR2732

LIFE SOUTH COAST

STAR2692

Leading client seeks qualified life actuary with analytics experience to take their career to the next level. The successful candidate will create innovative solutions to deliver significant value to the business.

Outgoing, ambitious and technically astute life actuary required to work on complex analysis work. The role requires the ability to interact with senior stakeholders, including the AFH and CFO.

Seeking a qualified life actuary to be responsible for pricing and product maintenance of all non-protection products, product testing and product migration work, as well as supporting product developments.

ASSISTANT SYSTEMS ACTUARY - LIFE

RESEARCH ACTUARY - LIFE

PRODUCT ACTUARY

£ excellent + bonus + benefits

£ excellent + bonus + benefits

£ competitive + bonus + benefits

LIFE LONDON

STAR2870

LIFE LONDON

STAR2811

LIFE MIDLANDS

STAR2749

Seeking a part-qualified or qualified life actuary to take ownership of the development, testing and documentation of our client's actuarial modelling systems used for valuation and reporting purposes.

Global reinsurer seeks a part-qualified or qualified life actuary to lead the production and delivery of the company’s actuarial bases in respect of Longevity, Mortality, Income Protection and Critical Illness products in the UK.

Our client wishes to recruit a qualified life actuary to lead the team responsible for product pricing and management. Product development experience is required, along with broad knowledge of life and pensions.

MARKET RISK ACTUARY - LIFE

INTERNATIONAL LIFE & RISK

CAPITAL ANALYST - LIFE

£ excellent package

CHF excellent

£ excellent + bonus + benefits

LIFE MIDLANDS

STAR2840

LIFE RISK ZURICH, SWITZERLAND

STAR2801

LIFE LONDON

STAR2877

Leading insurer has an exciting opportunity for a qualified life actuary to take the lead on the delivery of the market risk components of the company's capital models.

A fantastic opportunity has arisen within an international financial services firm for a part-qualified or qualified actuary to provide support for life actuarial consulting and risk management projects.

Leading insurer has an exciting opportunity for a part-qualified life actuary to provide support for group reporting requirements in relation to Solvency II/Economic Capital.

ISLAND LIFE

RISK AND REPORTING ANALYST - LIFE

INVESTMENT - ALL LEVELS

£ excellent

£ excellent

£ excellent package

LIFE ISLE OF MAN

STAR2768

Seeking a qualified actuary to work within a multidisciplinary team, providing support to a variety of actuarial workstreams including economic balance sheet, risk-based capital, and ERM.

LIFE LONDON

STAR2868

A fantastic opportunity for a part-qualified life actuary to join a global insurance Group where you will assist in the production and analysis of regular actuarial reports including US GAAP, EV, IFRS and Solvency II.

FOR MORE VACANCIES VISIT

INVESTMENT NATIONWIDE

We are currently working on a wide range of investment opportunities for talented actuaries of all levels to join cutting-edge teams around the country.

www.staractuarial.com

PENSIONS LEADERSHIP

LONGEVITY ACTUARY

PENSIONS SUPERSTARS

£ excellent package

£ excellent package

up to £80k + bonus + benefits

PENSIONS LONDON OR MANCHESTER

STAR2789

Market-leading pensions solutions consultancy has a unique opportunity for a qualified actuary to take up a leadership position and be involved in new business pitches, contributing to the strong growth of the firm.

LIFE PENSIONS LONDON

STAR2822

Leading global reinsurer seeks a qualified actuary to play a key role in developing its longevity strategy and continuing to drive proftability.

PENSIONS LONDON

STAR2650

Seeking qualified pensions actuaries to advise companies on the management of their pensions costs and risks. An excellent opportunity to develop your career within a genuine market-leader.

Paul Cook

Jo Frankham

Jan Sparks FIA

Clare Roberts

Diane Lockley

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR +44 7740 285 139 paul.cook@staractuarial.com

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR +44 7950 419 115 jo.frankham@staractuarial.com

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR +44 7477 757 151 jan.sparks@staractuarial.com

SENIOR CONSULTANT +44 7714 490 922 clare.roberts@staractuarial.com

SENIOR CONSULTANT +44 7492 060 219 diane.lockley@staractuarial.com

ACT Rec Dec15.indd 49

STAR2804

Star Actuarial Futures Ltd is an employment agency and employment business

FINANCIAL RISK ACTUARY

RI SK PENSI ONS I NVESTM ENT 2013 • 2014

Carolina Emmanuel December 2015 • THE ACTUARY 49 SENIOR CONSULTANT www.theactuary.com +44 7495 564 958 carolina.emmanuel@staractuarial.com

23/11/2015 16:10

Appointments GENERAL INSURANCE - UK Head of Reserving / Head of Pricing London Paul Francis £150,000 + Bonus + Benefits

Head of G.I. Actuarial Sarah Robins

I have a range of departmental head positions in the pricing and/or reserving field. If you have experience of working in a large commercial risk-carrying insurer and feel ready to take on management challenges please get in touch to discuss.

My client is looking to bring on board a Head of Actuarial to help develop and manage reserving, capital modelling, pricing and reinsurance strategies, techniques and controls. You must be a qualified GI Actuary with a detailed understanding of reserving and capital. This position reports into the Finance Director.

ESG Actuary Rachel Kelly

G.I. Actuarial Manager Sarah Robins

London £100,000 + Bonus + Benefits

Midlands / London Up to £120,000 + Bonus + Benefits

Surrey Up to £85,000 + Bonus + Benefits

I am looking for a nearly/newly qualified investment actuary to work in the group risk function of a major global insurer/reinsurer. The role will entail providing economic, investment, credit and market risk analytics and will sit on a number of high profile committees. ESG experience required.

As an Actuarial Manager you will be responsible for building an inhouse Actuarial function which meets Sol II requirements. This role reports directly to the Chief Actuary. You must have experience of reserving, ResQ and SAS. You will ideally be a qualified Actuary and will have strong communication skills.

Reserving Analyst Robert Gormley

Senior Actuarial Analyst Ross Anderson

London £55,000 + Benefits + Bonus

Start-up managing agent looking for driven, well rounded, actuarial student for very broad reserving role. Includes setting up systems and processes. London market experience a must. Great potential to grow with team and business. Role will diversify as more work brought in-house. Rare job with superb career development.

London £55,000 + Benefits + Bonus

My client, an innovative specialist insurer, seeks a bright and ambitious student actuary to join their team. Reinsurance reserving experience would be beneficial but not essential for this high profile, autonomous London market opportunity.

CONTRACTS - GENERAL INSURANCE - UK South of England £800 - £1,200/day

Data Analyst – Pricing South East England Dermott Bradley Fixed-term contract - £40,000 - £50,000

A number of our clients are seeking capital actuaries to assist with IMAP related work. We are seeking contractors with strong IGLOO coding skills and knowledge of SII IMAP. Locations vary but are mainly in the South of England.

A major client is recruiting an entry level Data Analyst to work within their actuarial pricing team. This role will focus identifying new areas of data (internal or external) that can further enrich their technical models or rating indexes. This would suit a recent MSc or PhD graduate in the Big Data field.

Capital Actuary Elise Ogden

LIFE INSURANCE - UK LIFE CONFERENCE 2015!

It was a pleasure to see so many of you in Dublin last month. Well done to our 30 prize winners! A big congratulations to Catherine Munt from PwC who won the star prize – an Apple Watch. If you didn’t get the chance to speak to us at the conference and would like any advice (either from a candidate or client perspective), do get in touch. Clare Nash | Associate Director – Life Actuarial | cn@ ojassociates.com | 020 7649 9350

Nearly Qualified Actuary | SII Hugo Chambers

London Up to £70,000 + Package

Lead Actuary Hugo Chambers

South West £100,000 + Excellent Package

*Exclusive Opportunity* My client is a market-leading business in the South West of England seeking a senior actuary with a wealth of experience delivering innovation across a range of insurance products. You will have experience leading a team and agreeing business strategy.

Pricing Actuary 0-2 years PQE Shola Kolawole

Southampton Up to £70,000 + Package

An excellent opportunity to join an exciting Insurance consultancy in the City. My client is seeking a specialist Solvency II consultant at nearly qualified level to join their expanding team. You will have excellent communication skills and a strong technical skillset.

This is an opportunity to work for an international insurance business during a period of expansion. Your key responsibilities will include supporting stakeholders in developing new product pricing.

In addition to this you will be expected to ensure that quoting and rating systems are accurate.

New Business Actuary Natalie Lightfoot

Capital Analyst Natalie Lightfoot

London (City) £45,000 - £65,000 + Package

This opportunity is to work within the bulk annuity team of one of the UK’s market leading insurers. You will be supporting the director of new business with the production of quotations for pension scheme de-risking. This previous experience life/pension experience working in pricing of annuities, bulk pricing, de-risking providers or pension’s consultancy would be preferred.

London (City) £58,000 + Study Support + Package

Excellent opportunity for a part qualified actuary in the city to work for one of the UK’s leading insurers. This will be supporting the head of capital management. You will be performing analyses to support the capital requirements for new direct investment opportunities.

As well as reviewing the internal model outputs in relation to the business assets.

CONTRACTS - LIFE INSURANCE - UK Capital Optimisation Ani Pannell

50

South East £700 - £850/day

My client require support for Capital Optimisation work, starting in the New Year. If you have good capital management and ALM experience gained with a consultancy or bank, please get in THE ACTUARY • December 2015 contact. Ideally you will be a qualified actuary, or have an equivalent www.theactuary.com level of experience.

ACT Rec Dec15.indd 50

Year End Reporting Ani Pannell

South of England £500 - £750/day

Seeking candidates with significant experience within a reporting centre. Good knowledge of EEV, IFRS, or ICA useful and experience of production of AoM would be beneficial. My client requires candidates to join them for initial four month contracts, with the strong possibility of extensions to work on upcoming projects.

24/11/2015 10:08

www.theactuaryjobs.com General Insurance – UK

ASIA Director Group ALM Gary Rushton

Hong Kong Circa HKD5 million package

Paul Francis

0207 649 9469

Sarah Robins

0207 310 8552

High profile strategic opportunity – immersed within the senior management team of one of the largest life insurers globally you will drive and develop the strategy for group ALM whilst growing and leading a high caliber team to support APAC BU’s.

Rachel Kelly

0207 310 8579

Ross Anderson

0207 649 9357

Director Group Capital Optimisation Gary Rushton

Robert Gormley

0207 310 8546

Hong Kong Circa HKD4 million package

High profile strategic opportunity – immersed within the senior management team of one of the largest life insurers globally you will develop and execute all capital related solutions for the group interacting with CFO’s across the region.

Chief Pricing Actuary Hamza Mush

Hong Kong / Singapore Up to 2.5 million HKD

Contracts - G.I. - UK Elise Ogden

0207 649 9355

Life Insurance - UK Clare Nash

0207 649 9350

Global insurance business with a highly dynamic and entrepreneurial culture is seeking a senior qualified actuary to provide oversight on large-scale commercial transactions and drive pricing / product initiatives across all markets / lines of business.

Richard Howard

0207 649 9356

Natalie Lightfoot

0207 310 8547

GI Senior Consultant Craig Lodge

Hugo Chambers

0207 310 8642

Shola Kolawole

0203 675 6833

Australia AUD 110,000 – AUD 260,000 + Bonus

My client are a leading data-driven strategy consultancy, who are looking for a Senior Consultant. The role is predominantly to lead projects across the pricing, customer analytics and appointed actuary work streams. The successful candidate will support senior actuaries and be responsible for managing a wide range of projects and mentoring and managing of analysts.

Associate Director Craig Lodge

Hong Kong HKD1.2 million – HKD 1.4 million + Bonus

A global leading credit rating agency with a unique focus on the insurance industry. My client is looking for an Associate Director to lead a team of rating analysts, manage a portfolio of clients within Taiwan and China whilst building the company’s brand. This role has a great balance of traditional and non-traditional actuarial duties.

Manager Wynlim Wong

Malaysia Up to £50,000

One of the top non-life insurers in Malaysia are seeking a PQ actuary to help drive changes through the actuarial department. You will be involved in multiple exciting projects across pricing, reserving and capital. Those skills are needed as well as an appetite for a challenge.

EUROPE Risk Manager Patrick McMahon

Brussels Up to €90,000 + Exclusive Benefits

European institution is looking for a life actuary, a professional with good experience in in Solvency II and market risk. You will be working in an international team and you will have the chance to work in projects that define the European insurance business.

Valuation Actuarial Manager Alessio Montaruli

Benjamin Moses

0207 310 8793

Ani Pannell

0207 310 8572

Dermott Bradley

+353 144 75159

Asia Gary Rushton

+852 5804 9223

Toby Weston

+852 5804 9042

Philip Chau

+852 5804 9287

Hamza Mush

+852 5804 9048

Rhoda Rivera

+852 5804 9225

Wynlim Wong

+852 5804 9090

Craig Lodge

+852 5804 9042

France Dublin €90,000

My client, a growing business but also part of a larger group, are looking to expand their actuarial risk function. This role will give you exposure to a number of elements including Solvency II, variable annuities and risk modeling. This excellent role will suit a qualified actuary.

Life Actuary – Solvency II & Market Risk Robrecht Geraerts

Contracts - Life Insurance - UK/Europe

Rome / Dublin €55,000 - €65,000

Emérique Opou

+33 1 76 77 46 30

Agathe Ibazizen

+33 1 76 77 46 31

Audrey Arrighi

+33 1 76 77 46 02

Ireland Patrick McMahon

+353 1 437 0625

Jack Lynch

+353 1 695 0001

Benelux Robrecht Geraerts

+32 24 01 25 03

Britt Ootes

+31 (0)202 900 035

We’re looking for a senior life actuary to lead a team of two resources with regard to MCEV calculation, life value analysis and IAS, IFRS and USGAAP reporting. Location Rome, Italian required.

Germany

Actuarial Pricing Data Scientist Junior Audrey Arrighi

Italy

Paris €45,000

My client, Insurance Leader on the EU Market, is looking for a result-oriented data scientist, focusing on the price & offer strategy spectrum. As a full member of the International Pricing Community, the intern will be part of this challenging project.

Senior Retail Actuary Agathe Ibazizen

Paris Attractive Package

Natalie Bogner

Alessio Montaruli

+49 89 2109 3935

+39 02 3600 6810

Federico Guerreschi +39 02 3600 6810 Please contact one of the team for further information on any of the opportunities above or visit www.ojassociates.com/jobs

An international insurer looking for a Senior Pricing Actuary, who will manage technical excellence initiative, define technical pricing modelling,analyse performance follow-up and country in order to enhance the groupe understanding of local markets position.

General Contact Details:

E

actuary@ojassociates.com

Senior Non-Life Validation Actuary Natalie Bogner

W

www.ojassociates.com

Cologne Competitive + Bonus + Benefits

My client, an international insurer, is looking to hire a senior actuary within its model validation non-life team. You need to have at least five years’ experience and strong knowledge of IGLOO and ResQ. German is NOT needed but fluent English is required.

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Appointments www.the-arc.co.uk

The Actuarial Recruitment Company

A fresh approach

Head of Actuarial, Europe London

General Insurance Circa £140K

Consultant London

General Insurance £Competitive

Our client is looking for a European Head of Actuarial with broad responsibilities within the business. Reporting into the board, this role will manage a small team and have functional responsibilities for reserving, pricing, capital management and business intelligence. The client is looking for an experienced and qualified actuary with excellent communication, technical and management skills. Prospective candidates will be expected to gain certification as the Actuarial Function Holder. Ref: ARC26301

This developing non-life consultancy has a new opening for either a

Specialty Reserving Actuary London

Senior Actuary / Modeller London

General Insurance To £95K base

senior trainee or newly qualified actuary with a minimum of 3 years experience of London Market reserving and / or capital work. The ideal candidate will have a superb academic record together with very strong project management ability and excellent client facing skills. A competitive package is on offer together with the prospect of fast career progression for the right candidate. Ref: ARC22640

General Insurance Circa £100K base

This role is aimed at nearly or recently qualified actuaries with a

Reporting into the Global Actuarial Head of Natural Perils this role will

reasonable level of GI reserving experience. The successful candidate

play a significant role in model assessment, development and roll out

will support the Specialty underwriting division of this global player.

of solutions. It will involve project and stakeholder coordination and

Key to the role is the calculation and communication of the reserves

working alongside business unit actuaries and modellers to provide

and technical provisions for this significant account of business

technical pricing solutions. Familiarity with catastrophe modelling is

on a world-wide basis. There will also be involvement in business

important together with a strong desire to challenge and deliver.

planning and a number of corporate wide projects. Ref: ARC26301

Ref ARC26302

Call us anytime including evenings and weekends on 020 7717 9705 or email enquiries@the-arc.co.uk Andy Clark BSc FIA Roger Massey BSc MBA FIA

0781 333 7891 0781 398 9016

andy@the-arc.co.uk roger@the-arc.co.uk The Actuarial Recruitment Company is an employment agency

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