Supporting the actuarial credential

To support the credential, the SOA must continually scan the environment in each of our major practice areas and make sure our basic and continuing education maintain an actuarial skill set that is consistent with the needs of the environment. A new environmental scanning tool is near completion and will provide valuable information to support the SOA’s efforts to maintain a relevant educational system.

 Key to keeping our education and our skill set relevant is keeping our intellectual capital relevant. We must support research and sponsor literature that covers the evolution in the traditional areas and the developments in the emerging areas

 Also important to maintaining the value of the credential is a continuing effort to increase public awareness of the value of our skills and knowledge. Increasing our intellectual capital and increasing our efforts to make the public aware of our intellectual capital will help keep the profession visible to the public.

Untapped Opportunities for Health Actuaries

This is a major strategic initiative for the SOA in which I have been privileged to have been involved for the past year. In 2006 and 2007, surveys of and interviews with senior health actuaries identified the need for more actuaries with comprehensive knowledge of health care systems. Uncertainty in the US and cost increases in other countries health care systems have only made the need for these skills increase since the initial surveys. The Untapped Opportunities Task Force is close to a final decision on a marketing research firm to help us identify all the potential opportunities for health actuaries and also to identify any gaps in skills or education that may prevent health actuaries from competing successfully for non-traditional health opportunities. The progress and success on this initiative has been a result of a successful partnership between the staff and a group of energetic and committed volunteers.

The Profession’s Role in responding to emerging issues

The profession has already begun to respond to emerging issues such as the global economic situation in a number of ways, including essay contests on the economic crisis and health care reform to help quickly build our intellectual capital in the emerging issues. Research studies on health reform issues such as quality and drivers of cost increases are already planned. I’d love to see us do additional studies on issues such as the impact on heath care cost of proposals such as requiring mandates to purchase care and the effect of eliminating of gender as a rating factor in health premiums. Another interesting area of research is applying modeling techniques for complex adaptive systems to the provider and health care consumer behavior. Similar research is underway on the economic crisis. The Sections and the SOA need to continue to identify ways to respond quickly to the emerging crisis and to continue to find innovative ways to bring our intellectual capital to the attention of the decision makers and the public.

Cooperation with other actuarial and professional bodies

While our tradition of creating intellectual capital is one of the strengths of the Society of Actuaries, intellectual capital is only effective to the extent that it gets read and discussed.  So we need to speak with a voice loud enough to be heard.  One way to amplify our voice is to build connections with other organizations – inside and outside of our profession and geographic region. 

 Financial risk will remain a huge issue.  I’d love to see the Society strengthen our intellectual capital in this area – perhaps by reaching out to actuarial and other organizations around the world to give us new perspectives on the global financial crisis to expand our knowledge of the best practices and the ones that should be avoided. I look forward to seeing an in-depth analysis of enterprise risk management techniques in recently failed and successful companies.

 I also believe that our knowledge will be enhanced by reaching out to global professional organizations in healthcare to increase our understanding of health policies around the world.  For instance, closer to home, the Casualty Actuarial Society, with its expertise in workers’ compensation and medical malpractice has a wealth of knowledge to offer our members. And – make no mistake – the cost of healthcare is a major concern right now in every country, not just the US.  Healthcare will continue to be an area where our profession can have an impact for many years.  We should offer our members as broad an array of perspectives on the issues as possible.

Relationship with the Academic Community

The academic component of our profession is key to our success in two ways. First, through their research and their publications, they provide us with materials we need not only to support basic Ed and CE but also to build our intellectual capital. Second, they are our ambassadors to new entrants to the profession. We need to strengthen the bond between the actuarial practitioners who are applying actuarial knowledge and the academic community that is building actuarial knowledge in an effort to reduce the time it takes between the development of the knowledge and its application. Strengthening the bond will also encouraging the academic community to recommend the profession to their students. Initiatives such as the new Centers of Academic Excellence initiative strive to address this issue and strengthen these bonds.