Welcome to the EAA’s Spotlight for autumn 2024 featuring 10 seminars, web sessions, and conferences from September till October. 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 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 autumn 2024:
Web Session 'Actuarial Data Science – Advanced'
on 12-14 September | 9:00-17:00 CEST
Organised by the EAA – European Actuarial Academy GmbH in cooperation with the Aktuarvereinigung Österreichs (AVÖ).
This is part two of four courses (seminar and exam) to obtain the additional title Certified Actuarial Data Scientist by the AVÖ and/or DAV. Participants who do not hold an AVÖ or DAV 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.
All courses are open to interested actuaries to deepen their knowledge and skills in the field of Actuarial Data Science (without exams).
Based on the building blocks known from Basic, we want to deepen some topics and present further important topics from the field of Actuarial Data Science.
In this three-day training, we cover a wide range of topics. This includes an advanced 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 Python. The training rounds off with principles for the ethical handling of artificial intelligence in the insurance environment.
Web Session 'Assets and Liabilities Management (Part 1: Introduction)'
on 16-18 September 2024 | 9:00-12:30 CEST
The aim of this training is to:
- Define what ALM is and describe the typical missions of an ALM department in an insurance company
- Present the financial risks on which ALM classically focus as well as the requirements of the Solvency II regulation for insurance companies
- Describe the essential quantitative ALM tools and methods used by insurance companies to evaluate and mitigate the risks
- Illustrate the different concepts through numerical examples and case studies to make it practical and not just theoretical
This ALM training starts with a first part that is primarily an introduction to main concepts of ALM and is therefore particularly suited for participants coming from different departments (for instance, people dealing with own risk solvency assessment techniques or enterprise risk management) and wanting to develop a broader view on what ALM is and how it works. It is also well suited for newcomers or people wanting to refresh their mind on these concepts. Note that the training is not limited to people working in ALM or treasury departments but is also adapted to other departments.
Web Session 'Explainable AI for Actuaries: Concepts, Techniques and Case Studies'
on 19/20 September 2024 | 9:00-12:30 CEST
By the end of the seminar, participants will leave with a toolkit of explainability techniques, an in-depth understanding of model interpretability, and the ability to use XAI approaches in practical actuarial applications.
Participants will also understand mathematical principles behind key XAI techniques, evaluate the strengths and limitations of XAI methods, run a machine learning workflow that incorporates XAI techniques, and analyse and interpret results in the context of actuarial cases.
This web session is intended for all actuaries, statisticians and data scientists in the insurance industry who wish to enhance their analytical capabilities by applying explainable AI techniques to actuarial practice. A basic knowledge of machine learning concepts and some programming skills (e.g. Python or R) are prerequisites to enable participants to derive maximum value from the training content and hands-on activities.
Seminar 'Open Source Tools R and Python: Extending the Toolbox of the Actuary' in Prague
on 30 September – 1 October 2024, 30 September 2024 | 8:45-17:00 CEST, 1 October 2024 | 9:00-15:00 CEST
Organised by the EAA – European Actuarial Academy GmbH in cooperation with Česká společnost aktuárů.
Over the last years, typical data science tasks like data manipulation and modelling have gained a stronger foothold in the day-to-day professional life of the actuary. Open source languages are renowned to be especially equipped to deal with these kind of tasks, but can also be tricky to get started with, especially when one has not been properly introduced to them. This workshop offers the opportunity to become more familiar with the open source environment and their applications, illustrated in detail by means of a number of hands-on modules, hereby enabling the actuary to tackle the data science tasks in an elegant manner.
Open source tools like R, Python and more recently Julia have gained a lot of momentum in recent years, not just in popularity but also in number of contributed code. Their respective communities are nowadays no longer exclusively composed of academic researchers and scientists, but also of professionals of all sorts of backgrounds, especially since the industry and corporate world have understood the added value of ‘community driven software’ and started to plug open source tools into their processes and corporate tissue.
On top of this, actuaries are confronted with the same issues as academic researchers and scientists: the production of readable, shareable and reproducible code and results. In the actuarial community, R already is a fairly known and used open source language, Python however a little bit less, even if it’s also packed with potential and even if it disposes of a vast biosphere of its own. This workshop will also focus on the ‘scientific stack’ of both R and Python and draw some comparisons between both worlds where we will try to show that it’s not a matter of choosing between both ecosystems but of choosing the best of both (continuously evolving) worlds.
Web Session 'Strategic Balance Sheet Management (Business Game)'
on 10 October 2024 | 9:30-13:00 CEST
The goal of the workshop is to teach the participants the impact of the various levers an insurer can pull to manage its capital position and in turn manage its balance sheet towards the requirements of the different viewpoints an insurer has, i.e. IFRS17, Solvency II, Local GAAP and of course an economic asset view.
We will start the day by introducing the concept of strategic balance sheet management. Set goals and ambitions to optimize the key performance indicators to which insurance companies manage themselves. We will demonstrate how you can replicate the balance sheet of an insurer in a platform designed to do this. We will then show you tools you can use to alter the capital position of the insurer.
From here we will move onto exercises. We are going to make the game real and create smaller groups. Each group has its own insurer inside its own environment. Each group will be set goals, to manage towards certain KPI’s. They get their time to confer with their colleagues and present their findings.
The ultimate goal is to demonstrate how the activity of one group can differ. We will illuminate how the activity of departments in isolation can influence the balance sheet of the wider insurer and by extension other departments.
Web Session 'Assets and Liabilities Management (Part 2: Advanced)'
on 14-16 October 2024 | 9:00-12:30 CEST
This ALM training starts with a first part (bookable separately – see above) that is primarily an introduction to main concepts of ALM. The second part is more advanced and intended for those wishing to gain more in-depth expertise on the topics. It includes some mathematical technicity, but nothing that goes further than a solid high school level.
The participants can follow a single part or both.
Web Session 'Introduction to Natural Catastrophe Modelling'
on 17 October 2024 | 9:00-13:30 CEST
Natural Catastrophe Models are a key ingredient for the assessment of Nat Cat risk. Questions like “What losses do we expect from catastrophic events on average?” and “What losses do we need to expect in the worst case?” are becoming more and more relevant, in particular considering climate change. Natural Catastrophe Models try to answer these questions in a statistical sense, and have for many years now become an important tool for the assessment of (re-)insurance contracts. In this web session, we will give a basic introduction to Nat Cat Modelling and its applications.
During the web session, the basic components of a Nat Cat model will be explained: Exposure data, the hazard, vulnerabilities, and the financial model. Additionally, sources of uncertainty will be discussed together with methods for quantification. After the first part, we will build our own simple Nat Cat model in a hands-on case study. Lastly, we will look in more detail at the results a model can produce and how to use them for pricing in the reinsurance context.
Web Session 'Cancer Survivors' Right to be Forgotten'
on 23 October 2024 | 10:00-12:00 CEST
This web session aims to give an overview and a deeper understanding of the cancer survivors’ Right to be Forgotten (RTBF) and its current development inside and outside Europe. We will discuss the different parameters of RTBF, such as product scope, disease scope, minimum remission period (timeline) and others. We will also provide solutions how to estimate the actuarial impact depending on these RTBF parameters. Finally, its purpose is to help understanding and navigating the most recent developments and implications of RTBF for L&H insurance.
Web Session 'LLM Principles and Case Studies for Insurance'
on 24/25 October 2024 | 9:00-14:30 CEST
This workshop is designed to provide a comprehensive introduction and hands-on experience with Large Language Models (LLMs), covering their theoretical underpinnings, practical applications, and the broader ecosystem in which they operate.
Participants will embark on a journey from understanding the basics of what LLMs are, including an overview, specifications, evaluations, and their pros and cons, to mastering how to effectively utilize them through various techniques such as prompting, and fine-tuning strategies.
A dedicated part will focus on strategic implementation, featuring case studies and real-world challenges to equip attendees with the knowledge to initiate their own projects or integrate LLMs into existing workflows.
By the end of the workshop, participants will have a solid foundation in the operational and strategic aspects of LLMs, enabling them to harness these powerful tools for a wide range of applications in insurance and risk management.
Web Session 'Communication for Actuaries'
on 28-31 October 2024 | 9:30-13:00 CET
The Communication for Actuaries course is tailor-made for actuaries and the situations that you encounter. It is an interactive training course that ensures that the theory is immediately applied through various exercises (e.g. exchanges in small groups, role-plays, discussions) that relate to terms or situations of your day-to-day work.
The course is designed to give you a solid foundation on the topic of communication and to practice what you learn so you can use the gained knowledge and confidence in areas that are relevant for your work. The last day offers you the opportunity to make a short presentation specific to your work for which you will be given individual feedback. At the end of the course, you will know exactly how to tackle your next communication challenge.
The overall 12-hour course covers specific topics like:
- Communication patterns/models, types of behavior/learning
- Verbal, non-verbal and written communication skills
- Virtual communication
- Presentation (as if “on stage“ and “on screen”) skills
- Discussion & Negotiation