By Stephen Camilli
Each year, I seem to have the same experience, whether living in the Northeast of the United States, or down in Argentina: the heat of spring sneaks up on me, and I am surprised by it. After months of cold and winter jackets, I am happy, yet almost unprepared for the hot spring turning into summer. I wonder sometimes what I missed—why didn’t I anticipate it or see it coming? Am I just not in tune enough with nature’s little signs that the warmth approaches?
As we look at innovation in the marketplace, something similar has happened to companies in multiple industries who didn’t see the signs of change in their own industry and found themselves unprepared. As a section, one of our goals is to educate our fellow actuaries so that they are as prepared as possible to drive and adapt to the innovation all around us—the spring that is silently drawing near.
As far as section events coming up, we postponed our Town Hall meeting—an hour-long event with a short 10- to 15-minute presentation followed by 45 minutes for Q&A and group discussion on the actuarial entrepreneurship. It is now scheduled for June 20. And we have webinars on pet insurance (2ndQuarter) and microinsurance (3rd Quarter) just around the corner.
We are exploring the possibility of a research project involving actuarial opportunities in InsurTech. Also, we plan to launch a writing competition on actuarial innovation this year. More details will be forthcoming, and we hope to have you join us.
Another interesting idea we have been discussing is to organize lunches at different locations with talks on innovation. The details are still being worked out, but one possibility would be to work together with local actuarial clubs. If the idea is of interest to you or your actuarial club, please get in touch.
As always, we welcome your input on potential projects and your interest in being a volunteer. Thanks for being a member of the section.
Stephen Camilli, FSA is president of ACTEX Learning, and wants to help this section be a resource for innovative actuaries like yourself. He can be contacted at Stephen@Actexmadriver.com.