Description: Modern Actuarial work, being quite data intensive, provides many opportunities for actuaries to use the statistical skills that are part of their basic training. Furthermore, modern computing allows us to analyze vast quantities of data intensively, and each package will provide statistical 'answers' to any questions the actuary might ask of it. However, in this particular field, it is often worth taking a step back, and ensuring that we recall and consider the warnings that come with each of the statistical procedures we might attempt to use. This will allow us to ensure that we guard ourselves against drawing inappropriate conclusions, which could come back to haunt us later.At the conclusion of the session, attendees will be able to avoid drawing inappropriate statistical conclusions, while doing their work. They will leave informed about the types of pitfalls that exist, and where those might come into play in actuarial work.

Description: The article explores a closed-form forecasting method that combines Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA), weighted linear regression, and ridge regression (L2 regularization). The approach addresses two key challenges in time-series forecasting: adapting to nonstationarity and mitigating overfitting due to multicollinearity. EWMA assigns more weight to recent observations, while ridge regression penalizes large coefficients to stabilize estimates. A cross-validation strategy across rolling time windows selects optimal hyperparameters: the EWMA decay factor (α) and the ridge penalty (λ). The method is tested using repeated regressions of stock returns, showing that most hyperparameter combinations outperform ordinary least squares (OLS) under the (λ=1, α=0) setting.

Description: Learn how modernization of data, models, and technology are influencing workflows. This webcast will address how workflows are changing in response to new regulatory requirements and the impacts the changes have on modeling and end-to-end future state operating models. Industry leading actuaries will discuss: How team collaboration can increase quality and speed of reporting to internal and external stakeholders How to strengthen controls and compliance frameworks across finance and actuarial departments How to modernize actuarial input/output for strategic analysis and insights How to attract and retain top talent by improving opportunities for actuaries There will also be dedicated time to ask questions of those who have made the transition.

Description: This e-course will introduce you to a set of advanced business analytic techniques. We define advanced business analytics as a set of tools and techniques to assist in key business decisions.

Description: The Predictive Analytics Seminar is a unique event that allows experts in the practice areas of life, health, and P&C to come together and explore the vast world of predictive analytics.

Description: Increasing technology is available to create and disseminate educational resources worldwide. In response, this article advocates creation of open educational resources (OERs) that will benefit the actuarial profession with both recruitment and retention of members. Specifically, we describe OER contributions made at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and more recently through the ASTIN Academy, a working group of ASTIN, the non-life section of the International Actuarial Association. We advocate pushing boundaries and creating new ways of teaching effectively for the future. The innovative use of technology and open-source materials is a way to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion in the actuarial profession.

Description: "A crucial importance in forecasting is to be able to distinguish cases when temporary slowdowns in health care utilization are followed by a “rebound” period of higher utilization. Come explore an analysis of a new mathematical model describing the return-of-care process. By means of simulation and case studies using the R programming language, the relationship between the visibility of these effects and the endogenous variance of the utilization time series is explored. After attending this session, you will be able to: Describe the parameters and mathematical form of the model Apply the model to real-world utilization data"

Description: This session will discuss essential theories and practical applications of deep learning for actuaries. Participants will gain insights on leveraging these cutting-edge techniques to enhance actuarial models and drive predictive accuracy.

Description: An introductory article describing how Bayesian statistics has evolved over the past 20 years and why it offers the actuarial discipline powerful tools to better understand and manage risk. Compared with traditional (frequentist) and black-box (machine learning) approaches, Bayesian analysis provides explainable models focused on distributions of estimates instad of simply point estimates.

Description: This webcast will walk through several statistical methods for imputing race and ethnicity from U.S. datasets, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses, talking about how to use them and evaluating their accuracy, and telling you where you can get code packages as well as a free dataset to try the methods out.