IAA Hosts Seminars on Risk Management, Education, Mortality, and Standards
The International Actuarial Association hosted four seminars in Zürich, from April 7–9, on insurance risk management topics, a proposed new syllabus and set of education guidelines for qualified actuaries, mortality, and actuarial standards.
The Risk Management and Regulation Seminar attracted 63 attendees, and focused on methods and procedures commonly used to improve the sustainability of long term pooling of risk via insurance. Two unique perspectives were proposed. The first was to view these methods and procedures as risk mitigants that bring both value and residual risks that need to be assessed and managed. The second was the proposal to organize these topics into an online, updateable, library suitable for regulators, management, the public and academics. Attendees and interested parties included the International Association of Insurance Supervisors, Bank for International Settlements, and Geneva Association, plus actuaries, local regulators, and academics. A subgroup of the Insurance Regulation Committee led the seminar, which concluded with an independent review of the library’s current content and how to enhance it.
Ninety people participated in the Education and Syllabus Review Seminar led by a task force of the Education Committee. The updated education syllabus explicitly sets out the depth of knowledge and application required, based on the Revised Blooms Taxonomy. Adopting this model of learning objectives allows the profession to define not only the areas of learning achievement expected of future actuaries but also the specific level and type of knowledge required of them. This will give Full Member associations a way of linking the required learning objectives with appropriate activities and assessments. The seminar’s aim was to present the work produced to date that is likely to significantly impact the education requirements of IAA Full Member associations, and to obtain their input into this work.
The Mortality Working Group (MWG) Seminar, which was hosted at Swiss Re’s Centre for Global Dialogue, was attended by 98 participants. The seminar focused on the latest developments in mortality research and featured presentations in the following areas:
- Introduction and recent developments in the MWG;
- The search for new sources of mortality improvement—moving from remedial to curative medicine;
- Preferred Underwriting;
- Projecting mortality of small populations; and
- A multi-disciplinary approach to managing longevity risk.
The Actuarial Standards Committee (ASC) led the Actuarial Standards Seminar, attended by 73 attendees. The seminar was divided into three sessions:
- Actuarial standards and the ASC—past, present and future developments;
- Results of the Professionalism Committee’s survey of Full Member associations on how they deal with approved International Standards of Actuarial Practice; and
- Views from member associations: their experiences, and discussion on the type of support the ASC (or the IAA generally) can provide to them.
The presentations from these seminars can be viewed online.
These activities are in support of several of the IAA’s strategic objectives, namely to:
- Strengthen relationships with key supranational audiences;
- Facilitate the coordination, use, and expansion of the scientific knowledge and skills of the actuarial profession;
- Establish common standards of actuarial education;
- Promote the development of actuarial standards and global convergence of actuarial standards; and
- Facilitate the interchange of information, experiences, and transferable models between countries with a developing actuarial profession.
To learn more about the work of the IAA on this topic, please contact the IAA Secretariat.