McMaster University 2020 Winner

2020 CAS UNIVERSITY AWARD WINNER

MCMASTER UNIVERSITY

McMaster University’s Actuarial & Financial Mathematics (AFM) program led by Dr. Anas Abdallah, has five faculty members and 165 students. The university impressed the judges with its focus on property and casualty insurance across curriculum, research, and industry engagement.

Program highlights:

  • Recent updates to the curriculum to include two new property and casualty courses and a data science course, and the university’s formal Co-op program in which students complete a total of 3 or 4 four-month work terms, which allow them to gain relevant professional skills and experience before graduation.
  • The university has published papers related to P&C research in top actuarial journals, and actuarial program coordinator Dr. Anas Abdallah was awarded the Hachemeister prize by the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS), to recognize the impact of his research on the P&C actuarial industry in North America. Additionally, through its industrial partnership with the Co-operators General Insurance Company, the university has produced P&C research on topics including reserving, ratemaking, and flood modeling.
  • The AFM program is strongly connected to the P&C industry, especially through the McMaster/Co-operators problem solving workshop. The main goal of this workshop is to provide the students with an experiential learning opportunity through a concrete P&C real-world problem. The students have the opportunity to learn and develop their interpersonal and technical skills. Further opportunities as invitations to present their results at the industrial partner’s headquarters and/or a full day job shadowing are also offered.

“We are honoured and humbled to receive the prestigious and competitive CAS University award. We have been working tirelessly lately to enhance the Property and Casualty (P&C) component and build a program at McMaster University that responds to the evolving needs of the P&C industry and facilitates the transition into the workforce. I am happy to see that these efforts have been recognized by the world’s only actuarial organization focused exclusively on P&C risks.

We seize the opportunity to thank the University Engagement Committee – CAS University Award Program, for their time and support to our department. We also want to thank our industrial partners and the Co-operators General Insurance Company in particular for providing unique opportunities to our students to learn more about the P&C profession. We feel energized to work even harder to provide the best educational experience to our students and prepare them for a career in the P&C insurance industry. We look forward to continuing our collaboration and engagement with both the CAS and the P&C insurance and academic communities.”

–Anas Abdallah, Actuarial and Financial Mathematics program director at McMaster University

AFM Professors: Anas Abdallah, David Lozinski, Matheus Grasselli, Tom Hurd, Traian Pirvu AFM Co-op program: Rachel Jones (Career Development & Relationship Manager)

AFM Professors: Anas Abdallah, David Lozinski, Matheus Grasselli, Tom Hurd, Traian Pirvu
AFM Co-op program: Rachel Jones (Career Development & Relationship Manager)

McMaster Actuarial Society (MAS)

McMaster Actuarial Society (MAS)