Notes from Cairo
By Eugene McGovern, CAS Ambassador to Egypt

Casualty actuaries in Cairo received a boost late in February 2005 when Gary Patrik, who was touring Egypt with his wife, Janaki, served the CAS cause with two public addresses.

On February 22, Gary spoke to a gathering at the Egyptian Insurance Federation. There were about eighty in the audience, including the chairman of one of Egypt's largest government-owned companies and many of his staff. Also present were a large contingent from Cairo University's actuarial science program. Fawzy Amer, FSA, founder of the Egyptian Society of Actuaries, introduced Gary to the audience, many of whom had no actuarial experience. Gary's nontechnical

Trumpet in band, Gary Patrik takes a break in front of the Sphinx and Pyramids at Giza as Janaki Patrik (foreground, left) looks on.

presentation described the actuarial student education process in the U.S. (university, on-the-job, and examinations), the number of exams, subject matter (math, statistics, economics, finance, accounting, and the like), the amount of study time for each exam (300 to 400 hours), and the number of years to Fellowship. Gary talked about the kinds of work general insurance actuaries perform, the technical problems they encounter, whom they interact with, and their influence. Gary discussed various aspects of the actuarial landscape, such as whether actuaries have a role in the investment business, why actuarial answers change over time or from actuary to actuary, and how exact actuarial answers are.

Gary said that one of the most important actuarial functions is to provide management with advice and good technical information. This information is an interpretation of data organized so that management understands what you are saying, not voluminous undigested data. The audience also discussed the merits of privatizing the Egyptian insurance business [currently all insurers in Egypt are government-owned].

The author poses with Gary Patrik (center) and Fawzy Amer (right), president of the Egyptian Society of Actuaries

The next day Gary spoke at a seminar at the American University in Cairo (AUC). His lecture, titled "A Simple Application of Actuarial Credibility Theory," dealt with the influence that a year's worth of loss experience provides about the parameters of the Gamma distribution from which a driver's Poisson parameter is drawn. AUC had announced plans to begin offering courses in actuarial science, and so a number of students attended Gary's lecture. Dinner at a local restaurant followed, with a good discussion on a wide range of subjects.

I hope other CAS members, wherever they travel, will do as Gary did and spend a few hours with local actuaries. In the developing world, that can mean a lot-to the locals, to the CAS member, and to the CAS-and, it's fun. It is a pleasure to meet dedicated, hard-working, curious actuarial students who will greatly influence their country's future.