Welcome to the EAA’s Spotlight featuring 10 seminars, web sessions, and conferences from April to June! Immerse yourself in a wide range of actuarial topics and techniques led by experienced international lecturers. Our content and objectives focus on input from (actuarial) associations and areas of work to ensure up-to-date knowledge. While the following 10 selected trainings for the second quarter of 2024 won’t be updated, we encourage you to visit our website for updates and discover even more events. Explore now and shape the future of your actuarial education and advance your professional journey.
Here’s a sneak peek at some of our top picks for the second quarter of 2024:
Web Session 'Understanding the Performance of an Insurance Company: An Introduction'
on 10/11 & 15/16 April 2024 | 9:00-12:30 CEST
This training is an introduction to main concepts and is therefore particularly suited for participants, coming potentially from different departments (product development, risk management, finance, accounting but also underwriting, claims management or IT), wanting to develop a broader view on how their work can influence the performance. It is also well suited for newcomers or people wanting to refresh their minds on these concepts.
Seminar 'Actuarial Data Science – Basic' in Vienna
on 18-20 April 2024 ,18 April 2024 | 8:45-17:00 CEST, 19/20 April 2024 | 9:00-17:00 CEST
Organised by the EAA – European Actuarial Academy GmbH in cooperation with the Aktuarvereinigung Österreichs (AVÖ).
This is part one of four courses (seminar and exam) to obtain the additional title Certified Actuarial Data Scientist by the AVÖ.
Participants who do not hold an AVÖ membership have also the opportunity to obtain a newly established EAA Certificate in Actuarial Data Science by taking part in all four modules and the corresponding exams. It is planned to offer all four modules in 2024 and 2025.
In this three-day seminar, we cover a wide range of topics. This includes a basic introduction to the concepts and terms of artificial intelligence, modern data management concepts (with a special look at insurance companies), aspects of data protection and the mathematical and statistical concepts of data mining. On our way, we touch different use cases in the actuarial environment. To this end, we provide a brief insight into the widely used language R and development tools in the data science context (RStudio, Anaconda). The seminar rounds off with principles for the ethical handling of artificial intelligence in the insurance environment.
Web Session 'Climate Risk Stress Testing for Physical Risk from Natural Hazards'
on 30 April 2024 | 9:30-13:00 CEST
In our session ‘Climate Risk Stress Testing for Physical Risk from Natural Hazards’, we will focus on the practical aspects of physical climate risk modelling and scenario analysis for insurers, providing a step-by-step walkthrough on key elements of such an analysis based on a case study. Specifically, we will discuss and illustrate hands-on approaches on modelling damages on location-based portfolios, such as real estate asset or property insurance portfolios. We will present results from case studies on damages from flood, wildfire, and tropical cyclones for selected countries, leveraging peer-reviewed public data. Furthermore, we will discuss the challenges on application for insurers, and also highlight key assumptions, limitations and uncertainties accompanying this assessment.
EAA e-Conference on Data Science & Data Ethics
on 14 May 2024 | 9:30-17:00 CEST
We are thrilled to announce our already 5th e-Conference, centred around the captivating theme of ‘Data Science & Data Ethics’.
In an era marked by unprecedented technological advancements, the actuarial landscape has experienced profound transformations. The exponential growth of computational power and the abundance of data have converged and provide an exciting opportunity for the actuarial profession to redefine its boundaries and explore the ethical implications of this new field.
The role of actuaries is evolving at an incredible pace but remains incompletely defined. We are at a crucial point where a new understanding of the possibilities of actuarial science and its ethical obligations needs to be created. Best practice experience sharing, and exchange of ideas is needed. We are delighted to offer all interested actuaries and other experts a forum for knowledge exchange:
On 14 May 2024, the virtual EAA e-Conference on ‘Data Science & Data Ethics’ will take place. The programme blends keynote speeches featuring insights from renowned experts with selected talks delivered by professionals participating through a call for speakers, providing a diverse range of perspectives and food for thought
Seminar 'Actuarial Methods for Cyber Insurance' in Lisbon
on 16/17 May 2024 ,16 May 2024 | 8:45-17:00 CEST, 17 May 2024 | 9:00-15:00 CEST
Organised by the EAA – European Actuarial Academy GmbH in cooperation with the Instituto dos Actuários Portugueses.
The purpose of this seminar is to provide an overview on cyber risk and on the ability of cyber insurance to cover it. After an introduction describing the specificities (technological, technical, actuarial) of cyber risk, we discuss the actuarial models that can be adapted to pricing and reserving in the context of cyber insurance and reinsurance. We also discuss the question of «insurability» of cyber, and of quantification and prevention of accumulation scenarios.
After completing this course, you will be able to
- Identify the specificities of cyber risk.
- Know the contents of typical insurance and reinsurance policies on cyber.
- Understand the impact of legislation on cyber insurance.
- Understand the practical constraints of cyber underwriting and how an efficient underwriting policy can help to reduce the risk.
- Identify the factors that may jeopardize the mutualisation of cyber risk.
- Identify extreme events and convey a risk segmentation.
- Construct accumulation scenarios on a cyber portfolio.
- Quantify the impact of protection measures on the risk of saturation in the insurer response capacity.
- Handle numerical tools and practical applications.
- Identify the key aspects of cyber claim management.
- Anticipate major trends in the evolution of the risk.
Web Session ' 50 Shades of Product Development Reloaded (Business Game Included)'
on 22-24 May 2024 | 10:00-15:30 CEST
In this web session, we will discuss different aspects of modern product development and put together the puzzle of different activities, aspects, and perspectives.
Therefore, we will deal with, amongst others, the following topics:
- Current product landscape and its evolution.
- Upcoming trends and upgrades for the product design of savings, retirement, and risk products.
- Modern investment solution for life insurance products.
- Smart and fast implementation of life insurance products because of a new product philosophy and external cooperation partner.
In a Product Development Business Game, participants face some of the challenges of a product development project. In a realistic situation, they develop in several groups a new life insurance product while competing with all other groups for limited distribution channels.
Web Session 'Understanding IFRS 17'
on 27/28 May 2024 | 9:00-16:20 CEST
The goal of the two-day web session is to provide participants with a comprehensive introduction to the new measurement, presentation and disclosure guidance for insurance contracts. It will cover life, health and non-life business, including the special guidance on direct participating contracts and shorter term non-life contracts and give useful examples.
In the web session, we will first shed a light on the context of accounting for insurance contracts within the IFRS 17 framework. We will present and discuss the general concepts behind the new model and refer to the application of valuation models like the Variable Fee Approach (VFA) and the Premium Allocation Approach (PAA). The web session will proceed with a discussion of topics specific to individual lines of business. We will close with an overview of methodical most relevant topics for implementation seen in various European markets, share emerging market experience and discuss these with the participants.
Overall, the goal is to enable participants to understand the standard and help transferring the requirements into your specific situation. It is thus intended to prepare participants for model development, implementation, testing, reviewing and consulting with management, accounting and auditors.
Web Session 'Non-Life Reserving'
on 10-12 June 2024 | 9:00-12:30 CEST
As Insurance is being impacted by new and disruptive technology, how will actuarial reserving techniques be impacted? Whilst triangle methods have traditionally been seen as the key methods in the reserving area, this may be challenged in the future by more complex expectations, improving technology, modelling capabilities, etc.
Reserving practices are expected to keep changing, as the influences of big data and regulatory requirements continue to evolve.
The aim of this workshop is to
- Refresh classical actuarial/statistical techniques used in non-life reserving (Gaap and Solvency 2).
- Focus on some practical problems faced by reserving actuaries, by presenting practical examples.
- Introduce more advanced techniques used in non-life reserving in order to open new perspectives on more granular reserving calculation, case estimates, etc.
Web Session 'Climate Day 5.0'
on 17 June 2024 | 9:00-17:00 CEST
While the actuarial community develops new ways to measure the economic impact of the risk posed by climate change, it is exceedingly important for actuaries to gain an understanding of how to use climate data, how to bridge the gap between climate models and actuarial projection models and how to produce relevant KPIs.
To begin with, we discuss historical climate data and its relevance for actuarial calculations. We explore how machine learning techniques can be used to enhance historical climate data and to remove bias from modelled climate results. We proceed by showing how Extreme Value Theory can help us measure the tail dependency between heat and mortality.
We then move on to the asset side of the balance sheet, where we discuss how the current alignment of an institutional investment portfolio to Net Zero can be estimated. In particular we consider how an insurance company can “take the temperature” of their asset portfolio. Of course, a portfolio warming assessment is a complex process requiring data improvements and a lot of expert judgement, e.g. in order to translate carbon budgets into benchmarks. However, we believe that the portfolio warming is a useful KPI and its estimation can help insurers better understand and manage climate risks inherent to their asset portfolios.
We continue by exploring how ESG risks can be reflected in the strategy of an insurance company to comply with the demands imposed by regulators and society. Being sustainable is an essential challenge which requires everyone’s commitment to make decisions that help safeguard the success of a business. The insurance sector must continue its path towards a sustainable business model, which requires understanding the rules of the game, knowing the regulatory impact and being mindful of various aspects from financial education to greenwashing practices.
Finally, we consider the risks of climate change in the context of the latter’s impact upon low-income people. We look into opportunities for insurers to improve risk management while making profits, and key components of profitability for insurers. We reflect upon COP28 and look beyond it, discussing how insurers can build their market of the future and how “risk management” supersedes insurance alone, while also taking technology considerations into account.