Keeping you in the know—the latest news from the Academy
RECENT ACADEMY ACTIVITY | June 19–23, 2023
This Week … In a Minute
Have a minute? Catch up on the week’s top stories with the latest “This Week … In a Minute” video. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive alerts as they are released.
Professionalism Webinar Examines ASOP Essentials
Presenters kick off the professionalism webinar
Thursday’s professionalism webinar, “ASOP Essentials: Communications, Modeling, Data Quality, and More,” featured Actuarial Standards Board (ASB) Chairperson Rob Damler and Vice Chairpersons Kevin Dyke and Laura Hanson, who focused on actuarial standards of practice (ASOPs) that apply to nearly all actuarial work. A recording and slides are available as a free member benefit; for a full report see the June Actuarial Update, being published next Friday.
Michael McCarty presents at Wednesday’s PBR Bootcamp
Academy practice-area webinars looked at health and life issues including, respectively, Medicaid and principle-based reserving (PBR).
Tuesday’s health webinar, “Overview of CMS’ New Proposed Rules for Ensuring Access to Medicaid Services, and Managed Care Access, Finance, and Quality,” featured officials from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which recently released two notices of proposed rulemaking (NPRMs)—Ensuring Access to Medicaid Services and Managed Care Access, Finance, and Quality. Moderated by Academy Board member and Medicaid Committee Chairperson Julia Lerche, officials gave an overview of the NPRMs, which are of interest to actuaries who work with the Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) programs.
The latest webinar in the PBR Bootcamp series, “PBR Bootcamp: Liability Assumption Development,” held Wednesday, covered topics in that area including mortality, policyholder behavior and materiality, required assumptions, differences between life and annuity products, and COVID-19. The next session is set for July 26.
Slides and audio of Academy webinars are available free to members on the webinars webpage.
Just announced—“Drivers of 2024 Health Insurance Premium Changes” on July 19 will feature presenters from the Health Practice Council’s Individual and Small Group Markets Committee, who will discuss the factors actuaries might consider in the premium rate-setting for 2024. They will provide an overview of the major drivers and discuss why premiums could differ from those in 2023. Register today.
Professionalism and Education Outreach
Speakers arranged through the Academy’s professionalism speakers bureau spoke in-person at actuarial club meetings in Clearwater Beach, Fla., and Cincinnati on Wednesday.
In their two-part presentation to the Southeastern Actuaries Conference, “Professionalism: A Foundation That Will Serve You Well,” Academy Secretary-Treasurer and past ASB Chairperson Darrell Knapp and Past President Tom Wildsmith provided, respectively, a focused look at the way practice standards are developed and at foundational and cross-practice ASOPs—and guided attendees through concepts and principles of professionalism and what it means to be a “professional” actuary.
Past President and ASB General Committee member Dave Sandberg led the Cincinnati Actuarial Club in a “Conversation About Big Data, Machine Learning, and the Future” that drew on Academy resources such as the issue brief Big Data and Algorithms in Actuarial Modeling and Consumer Impacts for an incisive discussion of Big Data’s impact on insurance and machine learning, and topics of bias, regulatory considerations, and risk classification and other ASOPs.
Professionalism Speakers Bureau—The Academy provides qualified speakers to actuarial clubs and organizations to help members fulfill their professionalism continuing education requirements. For more information and to request a speaker, visit the Academy website.
Volunteers Needed: Committee Forming Pension Risk Transfer Work Group
The Pension Committee is forming a work group to write an issue brief focusing on participant experience when benefits are transferred from a plan sponsor to an insurer. The committee welcomes members with direct experience in the interaction of the plan sponsor or insurer with participants during and after the annuity purchase transition. If interested, please email Pension Policy Analyst Philip Maguire at maguire@actuary.org.
ICYMI—Claim Your MAAA Digital Badge
Academy members received digital badges with the MAAA designation from digital-badging firm Credly, allowing you to showcase your achievement as an actuary and publicly show your pride in being a member of an organization whose mission is to serve the public and the U.S. actuarial profession. If you haven’t claimed your badge yet, check your email for the notification sent June 14 from admin@credly.com. Don’t forget to tag the Academy when sharing your badge on your social media profiles so we can help celebrate your membership. Questions? See the FAQs page.
Public Policy in Focus
Health Equity Committee Vice Chairperson Stacey Lampkin presented on the Academy’s ongoing work on health equity to the Southeastern Actuaries Conference—including the committee’s upcoming 2023 workshops and symposium focusing on the intersection of benefit design and health equity.
Visit the Public Policy webpage to stay on top of the latest news and activities.
In the News
Risk.net’s reporting on recent NAIC activity on interim capital rules related to certain collateralized loan obligations mentioned the Academy C1 Work Group’s December presentation to the NAIC Risk-Based Capital Investment Risk and Evaluation Working Group.
A GoBankingRates story, also published by Yahoo! Finance and AOL, on Social Security benefit comparisons referred to Academy research on gender-related factors that can cause differences to the benefits women and men receive from Social Security.
Insurifyquoted Senior Casualty Fellow Rich Gibson on factors as to why auto insurance rates are increasing.
A subscriber-only Law360 Insurance Authority article quoted Gibson on regulatory considerations for wildfire modeling in California.
Visit the Events Calendar for the latest updates to past and upcoming Academy offerings.
No Issue Next Week Due to Actuarial Update
This Week will not be published next Friday, June 30, the last business day of the month. Look for the latest Academy news in the June Actuarial Update, to be published that day, and for “This Week … In a Minute,” which will appear on YouTube and the Academy’s social media channels.
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