Description: This presentation is a Teaching Session, number 38TS, from the 1999 Valuation Actuary Symposium, held September 23-24 in Los Angeles. The instructors provide an introduction into how complex adaptive systems [CAS] can be applied to solve actuarial problems. They provide a general overview of CAS, including genetic algorithms, neural network, nonlinear modeling, and agent-based modeling, provide recent examples of applications to business problems, and discuss how CAS approaches can be used to address actuarial pricing and valuation issues, such as modeling customer behavior. Discussion from participants is included.

Description: From the April 1982 Society of Actuaries meeting in Houston. Discussion of how the insurance industries in several countries have dealt with high levels of inflation with respect to the development and marketing of insurance products. Also discussed: I. the overall business and economic environment 2. the taxation structure of insurance companies 3. the availability of suitable investments 4. the insurance regulatory climate and 5. the structure of worldwide capital markets Possible applications to U.S. insurance in the 1980's were explored.

Description: This presentation, session number 44PD, took place at the 2000 Annual Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held October 15-18 in Chicago. “This session identifies meaningful, evolving dramatic insights arising from the studies and techniques of futurism. It shows how such insights are measured and affected by each other and existing dynamics through the use of actuarial models and related tools.” The presentation notes that “future studies basically takes over when the assumption of continuity in models is a weak assumption or in which there is some reason to believe that one might not be able to use the same model throughout the whole forecasting period.” Discussion from participants is included. From Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 26, No. 3.

Description: This was a presentation of ACO efforts around the U.S. with great website links to resources, geared to actuarial consultants for employers. From May 2012.

Description: This presentation, session number 90PD, took place at the 1999 Spring Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held May 24-25 in Atlanta. The last two years witnessed a proliferation of guarantees on variable annuities and competing investment products: guaranteed living benefits and death benefits on variable annuities, as well as mutual fund death benefits and Canadian segregated funds. “To estimate costs of these benefits, companies have moved away from stochastic modeling to capital market pricing approaches. A panel of experts identify the various risks associated with these guarantees, provide an overview of the different pricing methodologies used in determining the costs, discuss whether companies are charging enough for these risks, and forecast the next wave of guarantee designs.” From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 25, No. 1.

Description: This session addressed the following regarding benefit plan design to control claim costs: What has been tried? What works? and What else can be tried?

Description: A debate among industry giants of whether the life insurance industry in 1977 is entering a period of changes that will affect business in the most fundamental way or whether it's just experiencing normal trials and tribulations.