April 2020 Newsletter

In this newsletter...


Actuartech’s response to Covid 19

We live in unprecedented times. The challenges faced at the moment given the global pandemic is causing a complete re-think of life as we know it.

Now, more than ever insurers must adapt to change and rethink business models to move to digital tools and capabilities.  Read more later on, below...

21 April 2020 10-5 PM BST - VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
An Introduction to Data Science in Insurance: One Day Training

17th April 2020 12 PM BST - LIVE WEBINAR
Further delay to IFRS 17 and what this means for insurers

22nd April 2020 12 PM BST - LIVE WEBINAR
Insurtech and Actuarial & Finance Functions - what do we need to know?

Professional Career Survey Our sponsor Protagion is doing a survey on how professionals are managing their careers. Read more about how to take part below...

On demand Webinar:  Are we in the era of actuarial data science modelling, and high level exploration of the impact of covid-19 - now available on demand

On demand Webinar:  Machine Learning Application for Non Life Pricing and Profitability Analysis - now available on demand

On demand Webinar:  Beyond theoretical data science: application to actuarial work: lapse analysis - now available on demand

Actuartech and Montoux Content Series:  The Modern Day Actuary

Actuartech and Montoux are partnering on a content series that digs into the heart of what the modern actuary looks like, the challenges and opportunities facing the profession today, and what the actuaries of tomorrow could look like. Read more later on, below...

Virtual Executive Data Science (incl Covid 19) Awareness Series - Learn more

Insurance TechLAB: the programme which supports insurers in benefiting from innovative emerging technologies in a commercially viable way, launched by Actuartech and Venture Agenda

In the News... Covid-19 forum for actuaries launched - read the article here

Previous webinars available on demand

For more information about any of the above please contact us

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Actuartech’s response to Covid 19

We live in unprecedented times. The challenges faced at the moment given the global pandemic is causing a complete re-think of life as we know it.

Now, more than ever insurers must adapt to change and rethink business models to move to digital tools and capabilities.

How ready have we been for this change and what issues have we been experiencing?

Examples in the media and from experts in the industry include, among other:

  • Predictive modelling to develop early warnings of the spread of the virus
  • Predictive modelling to predict the survival curve
  • Data Analysis to Identify clusters of vulnerable people
  • Dashboards are being developed that uses data visualisation to track the spread
  • Data Visualisation techniques are also being used to identify trends and detect anomalies
  • Natural language processing is helping to identify changes in public sentiment, among other

We know that there will be a significant impact on insurance companies from cover for business interruption and event cancellations, through to health and life insurance claims as well as the economic impact and the need for businesses to operate digitally and manage the new risks associated with that very carefully.

Actuartech, as an insights driven sight is committed to bring you industry relevant content and insights and views on the impact on our roles but also on examples of how, by combining actuarial insight with the data and technology available we can continue to develop solutions and opportunities, even in the current environment.

We will continue to offer our these virtually - see below for examples of online events to take part in today.

Please reach out to hear how you could get involved or if you have examples of how the insurance and technology industry is responding, that you would like to share.

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Actuartech Virtual Events


In light of the current situation regarding COVID-19 and government regulations preventing indoor gatherings, we have made the decision to turn our upcoming conferences into VIRTUAL EVENTS.‍

The conferences will have to be accessed from your notebook/desktop.  This will mean more people can join the event, since there’s no travel involved or venue capacity restrictions in place. Whilst there will not be face-to-face audience contact, we will aim to make the virtual event as interactive as possible.  ‍

In this new, digitally-driven environment, we hope you will be able to join us virtually and help maintain a sense of community in these challenging and uncertain times, wherever you are in the world.

We can also offer bespoke CPD sessions to actuarial teams, globally in a modern and professional way. Contact us to find out more - feedback received on one of our recent events below:

"I just wanted to say what an interesting presentation that was.  Thank you so much for taking the time to put this on for us, it is very much appreciated by all – especially the flexibility around hosting as a webinar instead of the original [in person] format.  It worked very well indeed!"

Introduction to Data Science in Insurance:  1 Day Training

21 APRIL 2020 | 9AM - 4PM UK TIME | VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

Register here

Event Overview

Improvements in computational power have given rise to the use of data science techniques in a wide variety of areas, including finance, driverless cars, image detection, speech recognition etc. In a world of high volume and varied datasets, data science techniques are invaluable to an insurance professional's toolkit to provide actionable insights from data

  • An overview of the impact of Data science and possible applications within the Insurance Sector.
  • An understanding of the main techniques of Data Science including data management, machine learning, text mining, scraping and data visualisation.
  • Initial insight on how to address hot business topics in different fields of the Insurance Sector by leveraging data, in particular in response to the current Covid 19 economic and pandemic scenario that we are facing at the moment.

Who will benefit from the training?
Actuaries or other insurance professionals working in insurance looking to learn how:

  1. Improved data and computational capabilities can tackle insurance related business challenges with increasingly sophisticated approaches
  2. The insurance professional can expand their toolkit by learning practical data science skills
  3. Data Science can be applied in an insurance context, using practical business examples.

We will also provide a high level overview of the various machine learning techniques that are used covering the key supervised and unsupervised learning methods. This will include examples of how data science techniques can be applied in insurance.

Event InformationTuesday 21st April 10 am - 5 pm Virtual conferencing details to be released nearer the time.

For further information or to register for the event click here.

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Professional Career Survey

Our sponsor Protagion is doing a survey on how professionals are managing their careers.

The survey covers areas such as:

  • What drives you
  • Dimensions of work fulfilment: satisfaction, achievement/challenge, support
  • Career questions or challenges you’ve faced in recent years or are currently facing
  • Sources of career guidance/support you would call on
  • Top career goals you’d want support with And more!

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS SURVEY

Please do fill it in, and share the link with your professional colleagues and friends, including those from other professions.
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IFRS17: another one year delay and what this means for insurers…

LIVE WEBINAR:  FRIDAY 17 APRIL 12 PM GMT

Register here

IFRS17 has been deferred by another year....

The IASB decided that IFRS 17 will come into force on January 1, 2023.

Join our webinar as we look at what this means for insurers.

We will look back at recent progress made on IFRS 17 implementation by insurers.

We will also look at the opportunities available to insurers to make the most of the extra year.

The current economic & pandemic situation is causing insurers to rethink their strategy towards IFRS 17 including, among other:

  • The impact on Pricing Strategy
  • The impact on Reinsurance Strategy
  • The view or outlook on Key Performance Indicators being tracked
  • The specific impact on their implementation plans
  • The impact on capital strategy
  • The Actuarial challenges that could not be resolved under the previous timescales’
  • The strategy towards data collection, analysis and reporting

We will also touch on

  • The role that technology can play in responding to the challenges

Insurtech and Actuarial & Finance Functions - what do we need to know?

22 APRIL 2020 | 12 PM | LIVE WEBINAR

Register here

This event will explore opportunities created by new Insurtech innovations as well as look at how companies are responding.

Insurers have the opportunity to optimise their processes and create new sources of revenue by rethinking their traditional business models with the use of modern day technologies.

Key topics that will be discussed:

1. How are actuarial and finance functions adapting in the new digitally driven environment?

2. An update on the changing technology landscape given regulatory, statutory, operational and legal pressures

  • IFRS 17
  • Impact of Data Science
  • Regulatory pressure
  • Digital delivery models
  • Operationally efficient operating models
  • Pressures from Covid-19
  • Impact on the insurance value chain

3. Impact on the insurance value chain.

Webinar objectives:
Learn about the latest research in this field

Leave with an understanding of what digital technologies are and how developments are impacting the insurance industry from a finance and actuarial perspective

Appreciate the impact these developments could have on the finance and actuarial function of the future

Understand where organisations and individuals may need to change to benefit from the advances

Impact on the workforce

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Actuarial Data Science

ON DEMAND WEBINAR

ARE WE IN THE ERA OF ACTUARIAL DATA SCIENCE MODELLING?

A huge increase in data generation, data capture and data storage combined with significantly increased computing power is providing insurers with a unique opportunity to re-evaluate the value that their data can provide; and the technologies available to do that.

Enabling actuaries to embrace modern day data science tools and to work closely with data scientists is an important link that could give strategic advantages to insurers in the further development of actuarial modelling software.

The current economic & pandemic situation is causing insurers to assess the impact quicker and to use modern day tools available to respond and adapt.

Looking forward, the actuary will continue to evaluate key sources of data and need to find ways to incorporate data science that uses state of the art machine- learning and data technologies together with the actuary’s business insights. We need to refresh our methods and make use of emerging technological advances.
On Demand Webinar Available Now

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Actuartech and Montoux Content Series:  The Modern Day Actuary

Actuartech and Montoux are partnering on a content series that digs into the heart of what the modern actuary looks like, the challenges and opportunities facing the profession today, and what the actuaries of tomorrow could look like.

This series will include views from actuaries from around the world. It will seek to answer a couple of key questions, including:

• What is the impact of technology and data science on the actuarial profession?

• What is the role of the actuary in the current Covid 19 environment and the impact on insurers and society?

• Is actuarial training adequately preparing actuaries for the new challenges they face

• How have the tools and technologies available to actuaries changed, if at all?

• What are some major expectations and trends actuaries foresee for the future of the profession?

Some initial views from our respondents are included here:

"We’re facing new challenges today, especially in respect to data science, and this is a problem because we need to be able to collaborate and in order to do this we need a better understanding of IT. And create teams of actuaries and data scientists."

"I think today’s challenges are hard, and while the training process is quite good but it’s mostly a theoretical one. I think we need more practical experience. “

" I think the market today needs more actuaries with IT skills, but in the past it wasn’t like this.”

"Our tools and technologies have not [changed] as much as they should have, there’s still far too much reliance on spreadsheets. I know we’re trying to boost data science and data analytics and some people are starting to adopt that, but I don’t think we’ve really embraced it enough yet."

"Tools and technologies can make sure that we don’t just focus on turning the handle to calculate numbers. I think back in the day, building a model was just to put in random data and see what would come out, but if we can move a little bit further from that and start interpreting data in a different way, and be able to project forward and understand what could happen...it’s forward looking instead of backwards looking."

To take part in our research, or for more information, please contact info@actuartech.com

Beyond theoretical data science: application to actuarial work: lapse analysis

NOW AVAILABLE ON DEMAND

How can life insurers address low persistency? How can data and analytics help?

We will demonstrate, with the use of a practical case study how the full cycle of actuarial analysis is evolving - from data collection and data enhancement, feature engineering, modelling, verification and ultimately application and communication.

We provided an example application of data science applied to actuarial work

Watch on-demand here or visit www.actuartech.com/webinars for further information.

Machine Learning Application for Non Life Pricing and Profitability Analysis

NOW AVAILABLE ON DEMAND

Methods used in non-life pricing are evolving at a fast pace and more advanced actuarial and statistical techniques are being used in pricing, competition analysis and profitability analysis.

Machine Learning and AI techniques are the continuation of the evolution of tools and technologies used by actuaries and statisticians to analyse historical claims data with the aim of; improving the predictive power of models; solving the same problems with new methods; more data and computer power available.

Watch our on-demand here or visit www.actuartech.com/webinars for further information.

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Virtual Executive Data Science Sessions

Insurance Data Science Training | Executive Virtual Lunch Series


Introduction:
The aim of the executive lunch is to support the leadership or executive team of a particular function or of the company to develop an awareness of the data challenges and opportunities the insurer is facing. It consists of round table discussions over lunch on a regular basis.

As a short-term measure, due to current government restrictions on gatherings in relation to the Coronavirus, these will be held virtually.

The lunches support the executive team to identify and develop key themes related to DataStrategy for their particular function.

The Goal of the training is for Leaders to:

Develop an awareness of Insurance Data strategy trends in 2020, for that particular function or leadership team;

·       Share different perspectives and feedback about data topics within their team (s);

·       Enrich their understanding of data techniques and practices.

Examples Topics being covered:


•What are the key impacts of Covid 19 on insurance today (and tomorrow)?

•Demystifying statistical learning models

•How to target key, valuable and realistic business cases for the company

•Unleash the power of external and unstructured data

•Big Data, Machine Learning and AI: what is possible and what is not?

•Communication, storytelling and communication power in AI

•Evolution of technologies and processes : operational, effective and scalable approaches

•Interpretable machine learning

•Developing an ethical framework for AI

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Recent Webinars Now Available on Demand

Listen to our recent webinars on demand here: Exploring Ethics & AI within Financial Service | Interpretable Machine Learning

All of our webinars are available on demand and information regarding future webinars and how to register can be found by visiting our website www.actuartech.com/webinars

We are the home of actuarial technology for insight, training and networking.

Actuartech provides leading insights and research on the topic of actuarial technology.

We take technology and data science beyond the theoretical and can uncover, and explain, in simple to understand language the impact it will have and the problems we are trying to solve and ultimately what value it will bring to the organisation. We cut through the noise and bring you the simple, easy to understand insight and practical examples.

Ask us A Question

We are pleased to announce that our On Demand Consultation Portal is now live.

The portal is designed to provide start-ups, individuals and teams with valuable insight, advice and support, on the topic of actuarial technology, where and when you need it most.

Book a free 30 minute consultation here.  

We also offer bespoke training tailored exclusively to the needs and requirements of you and your business.  To discuss this, please contact us.

With thanks to this month's sponsors, Protagion

Protagion offers active career management services for professionals, helping you sustain proactive changes that lead to long-term career success.

We digitally assist our members to improve their career fulfilment and earnings, including through coaching and mentoring by fellow professionals.

Sponsorship Options

Find out more about sponsorship opportunities with Actuartech for upcoming podcasts, videos, and events, info@actuartech.com.

Get in Touch

Actuartech wants to hear from you!

We would love to hear your thoughts on our newsletter and the articles featured and any suggestions you may have for next month.

Our Facebook page is now live - please take a look and give us a Like!

You can email us at info@actuartech.com or visit our website to learn more about Actuartech and access our unique database of vendors for specific technology solutions.

We look forward to hearing from you and thank you for reading.

April 2020 Newsletter

Written by Valerie Du Preez

This post was certified by Actuartech on

Review: This article is well-researched and provides valuable information.

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