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>
Alex Marcuson presented on the work that his Peril-based reserving working party has been carrying out. This presentation was given at the annual GIRO Conference, this year held during September in Dublin. After providing a recap of some of the material delivered at previous GIRO Conferences, and the challenges that had been identified at that… Continue reading>
Alex Marcuson presented on machine learning at the annual GIRO Conference, this year held during September in Dublin. Speaking together with Alan Chalk, the popular workshop provided an introduction for actuarial newcomers to this field. The workshop provided a practical example of decision tree tools to analyse sample text. Using speeches given by US presidential… Continue reading>
It is still early days, but the recent Brexit vote presents us with uncertain times ahead. Below I have set out some practical ideas for insurers to consider while the dust settles. 1. Impact of FX movements on business plans, balance sheets and internal models. Whenever there is a significant FX swing, particularly between Sterling… Continue reading>
The recent political turmoil in Crimea and the resulting trade sanctions led to reports of significant movements in the Russian Rouble. The news prompted us to review the history of one-year foreign exchange rate movements for the Rouble along with a number of the high-growth economies to see whether they had proved more volatile on… Continue reading>