by Alex Marcuson There may be trouble ahead… With its decidedly blunt approach, the PRA’s season’s greetings letter to CROs should prove to be a bracing wake-up call. Having set out in Janet and John terms last year (to Chief Actuaries and CEOs) that firms seem to be weakening their reserves, the PRA is unimpressed… Continue reading>
The annual GIRO conference is always a highlight for us here at Marcuson Consulting. With the conference being held virtually this year, it has been a great shame that we haven’t been able to reconnect with our fellow professionals in person. Even so, the sessions themselves continue to be extremely engaging, offering valuable insights into… Continue reading>
The North Atlantic hurricane season is upon us again, and 2020 is expected to be more demanding than normal. As the industry emerges from the first wave of COVID-19, liquidity risk management should be prominent on board agendas. In September 2019, the PRA published their Supervisory Statement SS05/19 - “Liquidity risk management for insurers”. Compliance… Continue reading>
At the time of writing, the Business Interruption test case brought by the FCA against eight insurers is in the third day of its eight-day hearing in the High Court, in front of Lord Justice Flaux (a Court of Appeal Judge fresh from ruling on the Shamima Begum case) and Mr Justice Butcher (a Commercial… Continue reading>
On International Nurses Day and the 200th birthday of Florence Nightingale (12 May 2020), Kendra Felisky of Marcuson Consulting celebrates the actuarial skills of one of the world’s most famous nurses. Florence Nightingale – A Pioneer of Data Visualisation and Handwashing… oh, and that nursing thing. It’s a situation familiar to all actuaries. You know… Continue reading>
It is great to have held our first Gibraltar SFCR review webinar recently. Huge thanks to our guest speaker Joe Perdoni of the GFSC and Kathryn Morgan for chairing the seminar. Kendra Felisky, FCAS, CERA presented our quantitative analysis and Alex Marcuson shared strategies firms can adopt to enhance their risk processes and reporting. The… Continue reading>
by Alex Marcuson I have been thinking about how Covid-19 may affect the non-life insurance and reinsurance industry over the last week and thought I would share some observations. While there remains some uncertainty in both the short and long-term, emerging sickness and mortality rates suggest that this will be a disruptive rather than calamitous… Continue reading>
At a recent meeting of the London Market Actuaries’ Group (LMAG) we attended, James Orr, Chief Actuary - General Insurance at the PRA, with his colleagues Cassandra Archer and Elena Papastylianou, delivered a PRA Update presentation on the recent “Dear Chief Actuary” and “Dear CEO” letters*. We think the contents of these letters should be… Continue reading>
Despite recent computational advances, internal/economic capital models remain time-consuming to run and often highly complex. We are currently researching into the use of proxy models in general insurance capital modelling, including a study into current market practice and evaluation of common techniques. We are planning to present our results and findings at actuarial conferences later… Continue reading>
by Alex Marcuson This question occurred to me at a seminar I attended recently. The speaker was arguing that cyber was a new category of insurance, distinct from traditional property and casualty insurance classes. On reflection, I felt unconvinced, but I thought it was worth setting out some of the arguments both ways. Why is… Continue reading>