SOA Podcasts - Society of Actuaries

Young Professional Advisory Council: The Actuary’s International Roadmap

Join us for a captivating episode as YPAC Member Silver Zhou, FSA, MAAA, sits down with special guest Andres (Andy) Montes, ASA, MAAA, MBA. Delving into Andy's one-of-a-kind international career journey, offering valuable insights for those looking to shape their own distinctive career paths. Discover the benefits of working abroad and how to seize those exciting prospects!

Actuary of the Future: Launching Your Actuarial Career: Mary Pat Campbell

Join Chris Smith, ASA, and Mary Pat Campbell, FSA for an insightful discussion full of tips and tricks for early-career actuaries and those aspiring to enter the field (as well as a brief detour into the topic of poker).

Entrepreneurial and Innovation Section: Everyday Entrepreneur: From Dance to Actuarial Innovation

Host Rong Rong, FSA, CPCU, and Arthur da Silva, FSA, FCIA, talk about how dancing and music relate to an actuarial career and what day-to-day work is like in a start-up company.

Long Term Care Section: LTC Innovation and Wellness

Roger Loomis and Erik Wenzel discuss Assured Allies wellness program which reports it can reduce LTC claim costs by 18%.

Health Section: SDOH Beyond the Numbers

Listen in as host Jackie Lee and guests Rebecca Owen and Sara Teppema delve into the intricate world of social determinants of health (SDOH) and their profound impact on actuarial workstreams. They explore how SDOH data, sourced from a range of primary and secondary sources, shapes actuarial decisions in the healthcare sector. From ethical considerations surrounding human data to the evolving landscape of health information, they discuss the strategies and insights that guide actuaries in le...

Emerging Topics Community: AI and the Future of Actuarial Work: Shaping the Future of Insurance and Actuarial Science

Welcome to the final episode of our 3-part series on AI and ChatGPT and their implications for actuaries. In this concluding episode, Joe Alaimo, CEO of ProComp, is joined by Deloitte AIS team members and AI experts Andrew McLeod and Harrison Jones to explore the future trajectory of AI technology and its potential disruption of the insurance and actuarial professions. They reflect on the lessons learned from the adoption of ML/AI technologies in the past decade and anticipate how the impac...

Financial Reporting Section: Assumption Governance Overview

Industry experts discuss the latest trends and developments relating to assumption governance, especially as it relates to financial reporting and valuation work.

Young Professional Advisory Council: Supporting the Future

Join Young Professional Advisory Council Chair Kiu Yuen, FSA, MAAA as she chats with SOA’s Beth Gall, Senior Director, Member and Candidate Engagement. Beth discusses the various ways SOA supports candidates, members, DEI initiatives and volunteerism. 

Entrepreneurial and Innovation Section: Everyday Entrepreneur: Conversation with a Generalist Actuary

Host Rong Rong, FSA, CPCU, learns about uncommon actuarial and entrepreneurship experiences with generalist actuary Sam Wehner, ASA, MAAA.

Young Professional Advisory Council- Actuarial Careers: Consulting vs. Insurance

Join Lisa Jiang, FSA, MAAA and Young Professional Advisory Council (YPAC) member as she talks with fellow YPAC member Patrick Samborsky, ASA, MAAA, and colleagues Jing Qian, ASA, MAAA and Joyce Wang, FCAS about their unique experiences working in both consulting and insurance. 

Emerging Topics Community: Reimagining Actuarial Reporting with AI: Introducing ReportGen.AI (Part 2 of 3)

Welcome back to part 2 of our 3-part series on AI and ChatGPT, where we continue to explore the potential impacts of AI on the actuarial profession. In this episode, Joe Alaimo, CEO of ProComp, resumes the conversation with Deloitte AIS team members and AI experts, Andrew McLeod and Harrison Jones, focusing on a fictional AI product named ReportGen.AI. This innovative concept aims to revolutionize actuarial reporting by streamlining and enhancing the process. Together, they discuss the bene...

Health Section: Optimizing Operations - an Interview with Chad Hollenback

Dave Dillon talks with Chad Hollenback about his new role as Executive Director of Resource Management FP&A at Aetna - and the lessons he's learned along the way. From key leadership initiatives to implementation missteps - Chad shares his thoughts on getting the most out of people and creating a positive and productive workplace.

Long Term Care Section: Interview with LTCI Producer Sally Leimbach

Roger Loomis discuss the past and future of the LTC insurance industry with an LTC sales veteran.

Young Professional Advisory Council: A DEI Discussion

Listen in on a robust conversation with Harrison Lin, FSA, MAAA, YPAC member and Vice-Chair of the SOA DEI Committee as he discusses exciting new DEI initiatives with Karthik Balaji, FSA, EA and Chair of the Joint Committee on Inclusion, Equity & Diversity. 

Emerging Topics Community: Unveiling AI and GPT-4: Actuarial Impacts and Insights (Part 1 of 3)

In this first episode of a 3-part series, Joe Alaimo, CEO of ProComp, is joined by Deloitte AIS team members Andrew McLeod and Harrison Jones to delve into the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), with a specific focus on the Generative Pretrained Transformer 4 (GPT-4). Together, they demystify the concepts of generative AI, large language models (LLMs), and explore how GPT-4, a product of OpenAI, stands out from its predecessors. This episode provides a comprehensive understanding of AI'...

Leadership & Development Section and Joint Risk Management Section: It’s time to pick up the books!

The SOA Leadership & Development (L&D) and Joint Risk Management (JRM) Sections are excited to announce that we are jointly starting a Book Club initiative focusing on leadership development and decision making this year!    This will be a platform for all actuaries (and non-actuaries) to learn and share insights on leadership related topics. It is open to all experience levels since leadership skill development is a natural progression, starting with leading by example.   Ev...

Entrepreneurial & Innovation Section: Everyday Entrepreneur: From Traditional Actuary to Start-up Innovator

Host Rong Rong, FSA, CPCU, talks with Victor Zhao, FSA, CERA, about his career journey from traditional actuarial roles to working at Eden Health, a tech start-up working to accelerate growth in primary health care.

Actuary of the Future: Longevity Risk Management by Karl Gagnon, FSA, MAAA

Longevity Risk Management was awarded first place in the 2022-23 Speculative Fiction Contest. This An audio version is part of the first place prize package. Here's what literary judge, Dr. Bob Mielke, had to say about the story, "What a great little story! We have here an engaging conflict, some action, punchy dialogue, and plausible world-building. Nice focus! The whole issue of whether one would ever get too old to want to live has a venerable pedigree in the speculative genre..."

Young Professional Advisory Council: SOA Catastrophe and Climate Risk Research

YPAC member Elizabeth Alleman, FSA, MAAA discusses the SOA’s Catastrophe and Climate Risk research efforts with a few young professionals who dedicate their time to the program: Priya Rohatgi, ASA, Matt Self, ASA, and Aadit Sheth, FSA, ACIA, CERA. 

Health Section: CAS’ Bias Research

Host Jackie Lee discusses the recent CAS research papers that address potential racial bias in insurance pricing with Mallika Bender. While we may be actuaries working in different disciplines, there is still a lot that can be learned for the work of the CAS and its committees. Listen as Jackie and Mallika talk about the components of one of the research papers.

Social Insurance & Public Finance Section: French Social Security Reform and Unrest

Earlier this year, millions of people in France took to the streets to protest against the raising of the retirement age from 62 to 64. We will explore the context behind the reform and protests.

Social Insurance & Public Finance Section: Interview with Hank Kim: Executive Director and Counsel for the National Conference On Public Employee Retirement Systems

NCPERS is the largest trade association for public pensions, representing approximately 500 plans, which manage about $4 trillion in retirement funds and cover more than 22 million participants. Hank will discuss NCPERS and their research.

Emerging Topics Community: Community Update

The SOA launched a new initiative, the emerging topics community, as a pilot in 2021.  In this short discussion, we explain what the emerging topics community is, how it is structured and what benefits it brings to the SOA community.  Information is also provided on how anyone can volunteer and contribute. Joe Alaimo interviews volunteer leaders in the community Kevin Durand, Laura Whitaker and Nick Miller View the SOA professional opportunities such as webcasts and topic calls: https://...

Health Section: IBNR with Zero Run Out

Host Jackie Lee and Robert Lynch discuss a different method for calculating IBNR when there is not run out available, called the Average Paid PMPM Method. Based on his recent HealthWatch article, Rob discusses how this method can produce more reliable results with less volatility. Learn about the method, and be sure to check out the article with step by step instructions on the method.

Young Professional Advisory Council: Building Your Personal Brand

Young Professional Advisory Council’s Silver Zhou, FSA, MAAA, discusses the importance of personal brand and building your reputation with Aree Bly and Jon Forster, ASA, MAAA. Also learn more about the SOA Next Generation Leaders Summit, where Aree will be leading a session on this topic. 

Health Section

Dave Dillon discussed with Paul Conlin, FSA, MAAA, the recently-published book “Power Failure” by William Cohan, on the 2001-2018 unraveling of General Electric.  One of the business events which led to the near-failure of GE was an under-reserving of Long Term Care reserves by 16 billion dollars, discovered in 2018 just as various other problems were emerging for the company.  There are lessons for actuaries in the series of events which led to the LTC reserve “accident”.

Entrepreneurial & Innovation Section: Everyday Entrepreneur: From Actuary to Author with Aree Bly

Host Rong Rong, FSA, CPCU, talks with inspirational entrepreneur Aree Bly about Aree's entrepreneurial journey and other fun things.

Health Section: 340(b) Drug Program

Host Jackie Lee discusses the 340(b) Drug Pricing Program with Tony Pistilli of Axene Health Partners. Learn about the program's history and the significant growth it has seen in recent years to now account for almost 8% of all outpatient drug sales while concerns about potential abuse and unintended consequences have also increased.

Health Section: Broader Actuarial Roles in Health Finance

Dave Dillon hosts a conversation with Brian Tajlili as he discusses his role leading business planning for a health insurance organization and similarities and differences with traditional actuarial roles.

Young Professionals Advisory Council: Actuarial Data Science

Data science is all the buzz! Listen in on the conversation between YPAC member Philip Wright, ASA, and his colleague Nick Laffey, FSA, as they discuss the application of a data science skillset to an actuarial role. 

Emerging Topics Community: Factorization Machines for High Cardinality Features (Part 4 of 4)

This is the fourth in a 4-part series where Anders Larson and Shea Parkes discuss predictive analytics with high cardinality features.  In the prior episodes we focused on approaches to handling individual high cardinality features, but these methods did not explicitly address feature interactions.  Factorization Machines can responsibly estimate all pairwise interactions, even when multiple high cardinality features are included.  With a healthy selection of high cardinality features, a wel...

Health Section: Stop loss Market conditions with Jon Forster

Dave Dillon welcomes guest Jon Forster, former executive for Medical Risk Managers for a discussion about current Market conditions of the stop loss industry. We’ll cover current stop loss products in the market, the pipeline of cell and gene therapy, and new underwriting uses of AI.  Jon has 20 years’ experience in actuarial leadership positions and recently moved to work full time with the Society of Actuaries to accelerate  professional development offerings.  

Financial Reporting Section: Drink in the Details: Sunrise of LDTI

This podcast is the third in our series “Drink in the Details,” featuring casual discussions with experts on a variety of financial reporting topics. Join Chris Whitney, as he discusses the ‘sunrise of LDTI’ with Matthieu Bousetta, Mark Billingsley, Dieter Van de Stock and Nathan Worrell over a tequila sunrise.

Young Professionals Advisory Council: Young Professionals Making Waves

Join YPAC member Harrison Smith, ASA, as he talks with Nathan Worrell, FSA, to learn about found success and growth within the actuarial profession. Hear Nate’s suggestions to define and pursue success including how to utilize your skillset, volunteering to gain access to knowledge, and finding resonance in your work. 

Health Section: Underwriting Transformation in the Level Funded Market

This episode focuses on the evolution of underwriting techniques to the current use of predictive models.  Topics include what carriers might consider when launching a model, reflections on when not to use results from a model, current regulatory concerns and activity around predictive models, and other topics carriers may run into once a model is up and running.

Emerging Topics Community: The Hashing Trick for High Cardinality Features (Part 3 of 4)

This is the third in a 4-part series where Anders Larson and Shea Parkes discuss predictive analytics with high cardinality features.  In this episode they focus on feature engineering via the hashing trick.  The hashing trick is most applicable for extremely high cardinality, and at first glance can seem almost ridiculous.  In a lot of ways, it is the same as bucketing values at random.  But there are times that it is more valuable to include randomly engineered buckets than to exclude the ...

Emerging Topics Community: Y-aware Feature Engineering with High Cardinality Features (Part 2 of 4)

This is the second in a 4-part series where Anders Larson and Shea Parkes discuss predictive analytics with high cardinality features.  In this episode they focus on y-aware feature engineering.  Y-aware feature engineering is all about carefully bleeding information from your training response back into your engineered features without grossly misrepresenting your ability to generalize to new data.

Young Professionals Advisory Council: Strategic Initiatives

Join the Young Professional Advisory Council (YPAC) Board liaison Melody Prangley, FSA, MAAA, EA, FCA, as she discusses upcoming and future initiatives for YPAC, exciting engagement opportunities, ways for members to elevate their networks and skillsets and how to manage and delegate a team.

Young Professional Advisory Council: Welcome to a New Series

Anthony Weatherspoon, ASA, MAAA, and Kiu Yuen, FSA, MAAA introduce the latest addition to the SOA’s podcast lineup. Discover what to expect from the Young Professional Advisory Council series, how often to tune in, and topics to be covered in upcoming episodes.

Health Section: Food Intervention Impact

Host Jackie Lee discusses the impacts of food intervention with Lauren Driscoll of NourishedRx. Learn about how this important basic need impacts the health and well-being of under-served populations and how health plans and actuaries should think about this impact in health care costs. Lauren explains how these services can create a deeper connection between consumer and their health plan. The State of US Health, 1990-2016, Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors Among US States  

Emerging Topics Community: Introducing Predictive Analytics with High Cardinality Features (Part 1 of 4)

This is the first in a 4-part series where Anders Larson and Shea Parkes discuss predictive analytics with high cardinality features.  In this episode they focus on introducing what high cardinality features are, why you might want to work with them and some of the basic approaches to including them in predictive models.

Health Section: Leadership Series: John Robinson

  Title: Leadership Series: John Robinson Description: Jackie Lee discussed with John Robinson about his new role as SOA President. He talks about his background and how he got to this prestigious and monumental role. They discuss his Presential Speech, which is found here. 

Product Development Section: Confusing the Matrix

Health Section: Ensuring Predictive Model Wellbeing

A conversation on monitoring and maintaining data science models and how that compares to actuarial models.

Product Development Section: Electronic Health Records (EHR)

What is an Electronic Health Record (EHR). Digital Medical Data today and how it is used today? How does it compare to Attending Physician Statement (APS) and what’s in it for underwriters.

Long Term Care Section: California Long Term Care Insurance Task Force

Parag Shah discusses his involvement with the California Long Term Care Insurance Task Force, which has been discussing potential public LTC options for the state of California.

Health Section: Bias in Health Insurance Pricing?

Jackie Lee joins Lydia Tolman and Jackie Young as they discuss their SOA Research paper, “Interactions of Health Care Rating Factors with Race, Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Factors.” We discuss how health care rating factors should be considered when being used in pricing.

Health Section: Current Events in Supplemental Benefits

Join us as Ashlee Borcan and Dave Dillion discuss current events and trends in the supplemental benefits world. 

Building Digital Platforms: Insurtechs, Carriers, and Reinsurers

Health Section: Auditor Check-in

Discussion regarding recent industry events and what your auditor will be looking for in regards to these impacts.