Insights and Ideas from the American Academy of Actuaries
Contingencies
Features
Election Issues 2024—The Academy Weighs In
New Clearinghouse website highlights nonpartisan Academy input on key issues By Ted Gotsch THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ACTUARIES' MISSION during its nearly 60 years of existence has focused on public policy. During this national election year,...
A Celebration to Remember
By Lisa Slotznick President, American Academy of Actuaries Contingencies is 35 years old! Let's celebrate! Think of any anniversary, reunion, or birthday celebration you have attended. The good ones have a worthy honoree, great...
Into the Deep End
A primer on neural networks By Ryan Huff Machine learning (ML) has entered the common vernacular as an umbrella term for algorithms pertaining to artificial intelligence and complex data analysis. In practice, ML encompasses any process that...
Driving Costs Higher
Our nation's fleet of hyper-safe vehicles is expensive to insure By Jim Lynch Inflation moderated in the United States last year, but the price of auto insurance did not help matters. The Consumer Price Index for motor vehicle...
Writing Long-Term Care in a Short-Term World
By Paul E. Forte More than 20 years ago, at an insurance industry conference, I moderated a panel with the same name as the title of this article. I had proposed the panel in view of the skepticism then prevalent about the wisdom of including...
How Long Will Your Startup Survive?
Measuring the sustainability of a small business By Jay Vadiveloo MotivationSmall businesses, defined as businesses with 500 or fewer employees by the Small Business Administration, represent the largest and fastest-growing business segment...Departments
Editor’s Note
Time Keeps on Slipping…
By Eric Harding
MY BIRTHDAY WAS A FEW WEEKS AGO. As I pondered my whirlwind journey through time, a funny memory from my college days came rushing back to me like a derecho. It was during my sophomore year, when my friends and I were still...
Letters
“Hacking the Planet” Series Is Timely, Must-Read Stuff
I commend Srivathsan Karanai Margan for the excellent "Hacking the Planet" series of articles on climate change. As pointed out in Part 3 of the series, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the approach we are taking (termed "CDR," or carbon...
President’s Message
Retirement and Financial Security— the Capstone of Our Lives
By Lisa Slotznick
BACK TO THE 2024 ELECTION AND VOTING-older citizens are more likely to vote and participate in elections than other age groups in the U.S. Of the Academy's election-year mega-issues, Social Security in particular (but...
Up To Code
Beyond the Credential
By David Kausch
"NO MORE EXAMS!" AISHA EXCLAIMED. Aisha was celebrating her success with a credentialled actuarial coworker, Bailey, over lunch. Aisha was especially glad that she no longer had to tell friends and family that she was still taking...
Hot Topics
Hacking the Planet—Part 4
Climate Engineering: Risk and Governance Conundrums
"Climate change is not ‘a problem' waiting for ‘a solution.' It is an environmental, cultural and political phenomenon that is reshaping the way we think about ourselves, about our...
Booklinks
A Trip Down Memory Lane
Review by Paul Conlin
Insurance Era: Risk, Governance, and the Privatization
of Security in Postwar America
By Caley Horan, University of Chicago Press, 2021
Caley Horan is a professor in the History Department of the
Massachusetts...
Statistical Miscellany
Statistical Miscellany
Anomalies in Gambling That Defy the Odds
The "Unluckiest" Gambler: In 2001, professional poker
player John Hennigan achieved an extraordinary feat by losing 32 consecutive
poker hands. The probability of this happening in a fair game is...
In Practice
Golden Years Life Expectancy
By Yingzhou He, Zhiguo Wang, and Jay Vadiveloo
How to enjoy old age to the fullest satisfaction
Motivation
They say there are two certainties in life-death and taxes. This article is not about taxes, but rather focuses on how to live life...
Crossword
Erdos Axiom
By Warren Manners
Across
1 "Faith is
the best wealth for ___" : Buddha
5 Baby
sitter's...
Cryptic Puzzle
Begin Again
By Tom Toce
BEGIN AGAIN is what I find I have to do when I fill out a
grid 90% of the way and then uncover a fatal flaw. It's pretty frustrating, but
that's puzzle construction. BEGIN AGAIN is also related to the theme of this
puzzle, which you...
Puzzles
Arithmetic Formulas
By Stephen Meskin
As actuaries, we are all pretty good at plugging numbers
into a formula and getting a result. In this set of problems, I am asking you
to go the other way: Given a specific input (three digits), you are to find
a formula that...
End Paper
Set a Timer
By Robert J. Rietz
"Hey Google, set a timer for 15 minutes," I said before
settling into an easy chair for a short wait. After flipping through a
dog-eared copy of Bill Bryson's One Summer, I asked for my status. "Hey
Google, how much time is...
Member Spotlight
Amy Angell
What has been your experience on the academy board and what would you say to volunteers who might like to be prospective future board members?
My experience on the Academy Board of Directors (as casualty vice president) has been both educational...
Actuarially Sound
Hill Visits Spark Interest From Volunteers, Policymakers About What’s Possible
By Ted Gotsch
Senior Policy Analyst, Content and Publications
The Academy continues to showcase its policy work for those
outside the actuarial profession, debuting in the last month the Election 2024
Issues Clearinghouse website, as well as the...
Actuarially Sound
First Post-NAIC Conference Webinar Delves Into Academy’s Role
The Academy recently hosted a webinar, "Post-NAIC Spring Conference Recap: Hot Topics from Phoenix," where Public Policy staff shared key highlights of the spring meeting and looked ahead to issues likely to be discussed at the NAIC Summer National...
Actuarially Sound
Academy’s April 2nd Medicaid Unwinding Webinar Discusses Effects of Program Changes
The Academy hosted a webinar on April 2, "Continuous Medicaid Unwinding: What's Next for the Health Care Markets in 2024?" The speakers focused on where the U.S. stands a year into Medicaid's unwinding of continuous coverage requirements, following...
Member Spotlight
Krystal Ross
What is your practice area and/or area of expertise?
P&C, Workers' Compensation
What led you to become an actuary? and what attracted you to the profession?
During my sophomore year of college, I was taking a statistics class with...
Actuarially Sound
Introducing the Academy's Election 2024: Issues Clearinghouse
By Ted GotschSenior policy analyst, content and publications
Elections happen annually in the U.S., but we only elect the
president every four years. While it can be easy to forget that our elected
representatives and other decision-makers make...
Actuarially Sound
Embrace Your Inner Wonk by Attending an NAIC Meeting
By Geralyn TrujilloSenior Policy Director
Insurance policy conferences are not where most individuals
would opt to spend considerable time-in fact, many of us have grumbled and
actively avoided some of those meetings in the past. So it may be...
Actuarially Sound
Defining External Stakeholders
By Matthew SonduckPolicy Director
Have you ever
been in a meeting or had a conversation when a word, phrase, or acronym was used,
and you felt lost? We've all been there: Someone says something that doesn't
quite make sense and there aren't...
