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Actuaries Abroad

Birmingham to Glasgow via the U.S.!

by Kendra M. Felisky-Watson

In October, 350 members of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries braved storms, floods, rail crashes, and other natural disasters to attend the annual gathering of property and casualty insurance actuaries, colloquially called GIRO. While Birmingham, England probably is not at the top of most people's "must visit" lists, the adjacent U.K. Motor Show might have been a strong inducement to attend, in addition, of course, to the excellent programme.

A working party studying the interaction of insurance, games, and psychology, constructed a game in which approximately 150 people participated in 36 teams. The objective was to run an insurance company selling three products: private passenger auto, home owners, and sheep insurance (a new and immature market that is bleating for attention). The game was run over five years, with decisions required for every year as to the premiums to charge, marketing expense, and claims expense. Some decisions also had to be made on investment opportunities or acquisitions. The game was highly entertaining and very informative. Participants really enjoyed trying to influence the market by talking to competitors late at night in the bar. The eventual winners went into the sheep market in a big way. Team names also presented an outlet for creativity: Woolly Jumpers, Clone Re, and my personal favourite, BLEAT.com.

Plenary sessions were packed full of interesting presentations that touched on underwriting cycles and business strategies, distribution channels, shareholder value, capital allocation, financial condition, and stochastic reserving.

The winner of the Brian Hey Prize was our own Sholom Feldblum. He gave an interesting presentation of his paper, "Underwriting Cycles and Business Strategies." A copy of his paper can be found in the book of papers for the conference, available from the Institute of Actuaries, and also in the 1990 CAS Forum.

Many workshops were presented on a variety of interesting topics including Bayesian networks and data mining, alternative risk transfer, risk-based capital at Lloyd's, and new developments in catastrophe modelling.

Local CAS members had the opportunity of hearing one of our own members, Lisa Walsh, who works in Dublin. She provided an interesting discussion of stop loss contracts and other financial reinsurance products. Then Alice Gannon, then CAS president, discussed current issues in the CAS. It was nice to talk with Alice and also to share experiences with other CAS members who are working overseas.

Just a reminder that next year's GIRO conference will be a joint one with the CAS in Glasgow from October 3-6, 2001. Working groups are being formed on the following topics:

The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries as well as the CAS encourage CAS members to participate on these working parties. The goal of the working parties is to present a paper at the conference. The views of CAS members are desired in the preparation and discussion of these papers.

It should be an interesting conference in Glasgow next year, and remember: you don't need to wear a kilt, you will drink some real Scottish whiskey, and I can definitely promise some rain!