Hello ASEA Members!

There was palpable excitement over the internet last month when the ASEA Google Group found out the 2024 ASEA Advanced Actuarial Symposium will be set in Kansas City, MO. It was like we were all experiencing Taylor Swift fever, but for an actuarial conference instead of Taylor Swift.

In the meantime, to satisfy your knowledge needs, here comes next week’s ASEA Actuarial Insights (virtual) Conference. I really like the agenda and am attending this. You can find a recap of the sessions here. 

One of the many highlights will be the session with our ASEA colleague, Tiffany Myers, Manager, Actuarial Services at Ascensus. She is speaking with Jim Holland at the conference, and I know she is excited and honored to be sharing the (virtual) stage with him. Tiffany shares some background and color to her presentation in an article found here: https://www.asppa.org/asea/shameless-plug-my-masd-session-jim-holland-actuarial-insights You will want to read this in the same way you need to watch the companion web series to your favorite Netflix streaming show.

I volunteered for Binghamton University’s Networking Night last week. It was attended by college kids asking typical questions, such as “What is your day like? What advice would you give?” etc. But they also asked, “When did you know you want to be an actuary?” The answer to the latter question mostly involves the math department poster that said “So you want to be an actuary, what’s that’?” It was the part about the standardized exams as a path to success that stole my heart. I don’t do much well, but standardized exams I can handle.

I have digressed. The point of that was that our next article is a sequel to that poster, though not for students. It can help to explain what we do to the non-informed (without getting into pension stuff).  Avi Wisotsky, ACAS, a Property & Casualty actuary at PwC's Risk Modeling Services practice, wrote “What Does Social Media Think an Actuary Is?” which you can find here: https://www.asppa.org/asea/what-does-social-media-think-actuary 

Background information is a good thing: It gives color and helps one’s understanding. While we are all able to look up which interest rates we need to use for certain calculations, I like this article for all the background on where the interest rates came from. In “Lump Sums in Interest Rate / Mortality Environment: 6 Liabilities all Calculated the Same,” Jonathan Murello, FSA, EA, MAAA, CERA, an actuary and senior consultant with Dunbar, Bender & Zapf, Inc., gives great background on the interest rates us actuaries use for various purposes, which you can find here: https://www.asppa.org/asea/lump-sums-interest-rate-mortality-environment-6-liabilities-all-calculated-same 

Finally, ARA’s John Iekel writes about the Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). This is one of those articles I need to let speak for itself. You can find “A Look at the PBGC in FY 2023—Actuarially Speaking”
here: https://www.asppa.org/asea/look-pbgc-fy-2023%E2%80%94actuarially-speaking 

Well, that is January! My data requests are being sent back and I straddle the line between being bonkers and having it all under control. Who will win? We will see where we are in February (or more likely, April 15…

Alan