Archive for the ‘Lists’ Category

More Insurance Trends to Watch for Actuaries, Underwriters and Claims Personnel, Part 2

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

More Insurance Trends to Watch for Actuaries, Underwriters and Claims Personnel, Part 2,
by Claude Penland
Insurance Job Losses, Predictive Analytics Use, Health Plan Grandfathering and Other Insurance Trends

These insurance trends continue where the article 20 Insurance Trends to Watch left off.

20. Property and casualty insurance companies increase their use of predictive analytics.

19. Some insurance runoff specialists are growing up fast.

18. Rainfall contracts launched by the CME Group.

17. There are not enough qualified insurance regulators in the United Kingdom. Solvency II is contributing to that employee shortage.

16. United States insurance companies lose 6,000 jobs.

15. The combination of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) and Solvency II will place strain on insurance companies’ balance sheets.

14. Institute of Actuaries of India has plans to expand throughout Asia.

13. US companies’ health plan “grandfathering” with regards to health “reform” is still in flux.

12. Medicaid costs anticipated to increase a lot in several US states.

11. New Hampshire is pushing for more locally-domiciled insurers.

10. CEO’s, CFO’s, Chairmen, Presidents, CIO’s, General Counsels and COO’s are very well paid among the largest ten property and casualty, health and life insurers: a compensation comparison.

9. The Asian reinsurance market could consolidate.

8. Virtual insurance, such as crop insurance in FarmVille, might be on the rise.

7. Insurance claims adjusters and lawyers are using social networks for investigations.

6. Sinkholes in Florida are becoming an insurance problem.

5. Medical malpractice costs increasing.

4. Automobile insurance claims costs in the United Kingdom are rapidly rising.

3. Saudi Arabian health insurance premiums increasing 30% per year.

2. Mortality improvements may slow within a few decades.

1. The Canadian insurance-linked securities market should grow.

7 Business Segments That Need Employees

Saturday, February 12th, 2011

3. Automotive

4. Education

5. Healthcare

1., 2., 6., 7. Read more…

10 Prominent Influenza Pandemic Models: Death, Disease and Economic Loss Modeling

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

10 Prominent Influenza Pandemic Models, by Claude Penland
Death, Disease and Economic Loss Modeling in the 21st Century

This article will discuss some different types of influenza pandemic models. It is not intended to be a comprehensive look at the state of pandemic modeling, and instead is merely a discussion of some interesting flu pandemic models.

What is a pandemic? Pandemics are infectious disease epidemics that spread across a wide region. Recent pandemics include the flu pandemic of 2009 and the HIV pandemic. Historical pandemics have also included outbreaks of tuberculosis and smallpox.

The Society of Actuaries’ model evaluates the potential impact on the United States life insurance industry. Actuarial analysis looks at possible economic effects as well as potential excess insured mortality.

Military Medicine looks at a policy model for military public health officials. This Pandemic Influenza Policy Model (PIPM) is a collaborative computer modeling effort between the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and U.S. Department of Defense. Incidentally, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s “Best Practices and Model Protocols” provides many interesting discussions of model inputs.

The model by a catastrophe risk modeling firm, Risk Management Solutions (RMS), supplies thousands of unique pandemic scenarios. These vary based on demographics, virus infectiousness, vaccine production and efficacy, lethality of virus and pandemic lifecycle. Additional information is available at “Managing Influenza Pandemic Risk”.

FluTE is an open source model. The model is calibrated so that outcomes are consistent with the 2009 pandemic A(H1N1) and 1957/1958 Asian A(H2N2) influenza viruses.

Milliman, a consulting actuary, has modeled pandemics so that they may price mortality catastrophe bonds. It is an actuarial model based on a frequency and severity approach.

The National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC), which is at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, has the Epidemic Simulation System (EpiSimS). EpiSimS models the U.S. as fifteen regions. Each region is composed of around 20 million synthetic individuals.

At the INFORMS Simulation Society Winter Conference of 2009, a paper was presented on a simulation model for pandemic preparedness planning. The paper presents a geospatial and temporal disease spread model for flu pandemics with particular attention paid to school closings.

The Global Epidemic Model (GEM) enables testing of intervention strategies. It uses uses population data and airline travel data to create an air travel network among the major metropolitan areas of the world. It then models the course of the potential epidemic as it spreads around the world.

VirSim was developed to help support policy making. Governments can decide on intervention strategies, and lost work and hospitalization effects on society are documented.

The University of South Florida’s model performs simulations for development of dynamic mitigation strategies.

Some other models include Georgia Tech’s, The University of Western Australia’s, a Biological Model for Influenza Transmission, a model of Japan and an Avian-human influenza epidemic model.

Additional sources are PandemicSimulation.com, a pandemic simulation community website, NPR, The Scientist and MAA.

15 Important Actuarial Jobs / Actuarial Careers News Items from Second Half of 2010

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Actuarial Employment / Actuarial Careers News Items

1. The C-Level Actuary: How Did Actuaries Get Beyond Their Actuarial Jobs? http://bit.ly/h8S2ZC

2. Will the CERA become the “gold standard” for risk management? http://bit.ly/fZykhU

3. Classroom Guide for Actuaries Published by the Actuarial Foundation http://bit.ly/efCgRW

4. Actuarial Careers Named One of Fifty Best Careers for 2011 http://bit.ly/fmxvU3

5. A Comparison of Three Disciplines’ Insurance Salary Surveys’ Medians, C-level http://bit.ly/97Fn3q

6. “There are almost no unemployed experienced actuaries” http://bit.ly/9XsZUH

7. Actuarial Science very, very popular major among Overseas Students in the US http://bit.ly/dvmdyD

8. Actuarial Intern discusses her Actuarial Internship at Allstate http://bit.ly/batjam

9. Actuarial Jobs are too hard to fill, say recruiters http://bit.ly/fsK8eU

10. Actuarial Students sought by the Casualty Actuarial Society http://bit.ly/bzUolD

11. Lloyd’s Managing Agents hire 126 actuaries. Solvency II a major reason. http://bit.ly/aefIq8

12. Solvency II expected to create 250+ actuarial jobs in Ireland http://bit.ly/bOIu7E

13. Captive Insurance Jobs up in Vermont: Accountants, Actuaries, Lawyers http://bit.ly/a1lBIC

14. Actuaries and risk analysts working in virtual economies? http://bit.ly/eUQRCT

15. States individually plan to hire actuaries to review health rates http://bit.ly/bJBuEd

How to be a Great Startup Chief Executive Officer

Monday, January 31st, 2011

1. Absorb The Pain For The Team

2. Find The Smartest People And Defer On Domain Expertise

3. Be A Good Link Between The Company + Investors

4. Read more…

22 Recruiting / Job Hunting Tools You Won’t Want to be Without

Friday, January 28th, 2011

22 Recruiting / Job Hunting Tools You Won’t Want to be Without

1. With Career Element, Offer a Bounty to those who find you a Job

2. Match Your Talents to Specific Careers with WYGU.com

3. Executive Recruiter Salary Survey PowerPoint Presentation to Download and Share

4. Executive Recruiters: Why Do Job Seekers Use Them? A Downloadable PowerPoint Presentation

5. Facebook App for Recruitment from BraveNewTalent

6. Are you recruiting on Facebook? Check out Work4Labs.

7. RealMatch is an Online Recruitment Ad Network of 1,200 Websites

8. Wanted Technologies’ New Tool Estimates Number of Candidates Per Job

9. Manage the Recruitment Process from your iPhone

10. Cost-Per-Hire While Posting on Twitter: $1K/Hire; Posting on Facebook: $600/Hire

11. http://ConnectedInsiders.com Analyzes the Most-Connected Employees Inside Companies

12. Recruitment Affiliate Marketing System at http://JobCopies.com, #Jobs #Recruiters #Recruiting

13. Friday’s quote about social recruiting

14. Jibe to launch as a job board that ties into Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter

15. Predictive Modeler Needed to Forecast Career Paths by Resume Analytics

16. 6 Ways LinkedIn Improves Your Resume Writing Skills

17. Branchout / Facebook vs. LinkedIn

18. Pplmatch.com is a cool networking tool

19. Branchout.com will tell you who worked where, on Facebook

20. Use Stik to Find Services on Facebook

21. LinkedIn, Facebook Mashup Proposed at InLikey.com

22. 7 New Types of Websites to Place Classified Advertisements

Publicly-Listed Property and Casualty Insurers, Ranked by Market Capitalization

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

Publicly-Listed Property and Casualty Insurers.

Chief Financial Officers Are Worried About These 10 Things At Least

Monday, January 24th, 2011

2. Stingy banks
5. Tax avoidance is getting tougher
10. Accounting standards

Read more…

5 Intellectual Web Advertising Trends for 2011

Sunday, January 23rd, 2011

5 Intellectual Web Advertising Trends for 2011

1. Researcher Says Don’t Pay One Kardashian, Instead Pay a Bunch of Tweeters http://bit.ly/h0hfoE

2. Sharethrough is a Video Ad Startup To Make Ads Popular and Viral http://bit.ly/b8d1un

3. Virtual Farm Insurance Declared a Success. Farmers Insurance Will Remain in FarmVille. http://bit.ly/9FCHNy

4. Prostitutes Teach You Marketing: 10 Tips That They’ll Learn You Good http://bit.ly/dOoOW4

5. If You’re in Mobile Advertising, Most of the Money is Made through the Mobile Web http://bit.ly/dP4QhN

9 Slick Ways People Use the Web in 2011

Saturday, January 22nd, 2011

Nine Ways People Use the Web in 2011

1. Company Sells 2.7 Billion Virtual Goods Every Month http://bit.ly/halJqs

2. Most United Kingdom Members of Facebook Log In While In Bed http://bit.ly/dNdDds

3. Venture Capitalist Says Social Networking Might Grow 1000% to 2500% Within 5 Years http://bit.ly/fSTYpY

4. Social Networking Sites Blend Studying with Hanging Out Online http://bit.ly/ggf62c

5. LinkedIn CEO On Why We Need More Than Facebook http://bit.ly/dU0FCW

6. Gravity Creates Detailed Profiles of Users http://bit.ly/edKfvv

7. 3 out of 4 Facebook Users Access Their Accounts at Work http://bit.ly/i8UBvt

8. Social Networking Trends http://bit.ly/fvjkVL

9. The Future of Social Networking http://bit.ly/ehu8Cx