2002 CAS Spring Meeting Set for San Diego

by Richard W. Gorvett

The ocean… A great zoo and wild animal park… Wonderful weather… Shamu….

A beautiful city and hotel—San Diego, California, and the Hotel del Coronado—will host the CAS 2002 Spring meeting. Mark your calendars for May 19-22, and join us at this traditionally popular location.

The featured speaker will be James Glassman, a financial columnist for The Washington Post and coauthor of the book Dow 36,000. He has offered his insights on global trends and the future of finance to national audiences via the print and elevision media. He is a resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and hosts TechCentralStation.com, a Web site exploring finance and technology.

Four interesting and timely general sessions are being planned for the meeting. "Dealing with Terrorism: Next Steps?" considers the issues and strategic responses of insurers and regulators with respect to the possibility of future terrorist events. "Enterprise Risk Management and Disaster Recovery" discusses issues associated with these emerging disciplines, along with what we have learned from the responses of disaster recovery plans to recent catastrophic events. "Can We Talk?" takes us on a satirical journey through a day in the life of a "communications-challenged" actuary: three tongue-in-cheek documentaries shed some light on how actuaries are perceived by others. "Market Cycle Update" examines changing insurance market conditions and looks ahead toward possible future market movements.

Some of the concurrent session topics being considered include: ratemaking in a hard market; mold issues; new capital flowing into Bermuda; using expert claims systems; reserving issues; risk and return; capital allocation; credit ratemaking issues; the dos and don'ts of dealing with the media; asset-liability management; fraud; risk retention and captives; diversity; medical malpractice; and catastrophe modeling. A limited attendance session focusing on general business skills will also be offered.

The Monday tour will include a look behind the scenes at the San Diego Zoo. The Tuesday evening event will be a "patriotic theme" party at the resort.

Attendees are also strongly encouraged to participate in future meeting planning by filling out the evaluation forms that will be provided at the meeting. These evaluation results are important for determining the interests of the CAS membership regarding future general and concurrent sessions.

Additional information on the 2002 Spring meeting will be available soon on the CAS Web Site. Please join us in San Diego!