Ratemaking Research
Working Party
Stewart Gleason, Ph.D., ACAS, ASA, MAAA
CAS Research Initiatives Coordinator
Senior Vice President
Guy Carpenter & Company, Inc.
Agenda
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Working Parties
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What is a working party?
Who forms them and why?
What’s wrong with the way things are now?
Can working parties really replace the call paper programs?
What are the current working parties?
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What papers have been produced to date?
Are they working?
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Research Paper Template
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Research Taxonomy
What is a “working party”?
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Essentially a task force focused on
research of a specific topic or solution of
a specific problem
Group effort with a single work product
Modeled on GIRO platform where it has
been used successfully
Who forms them and why?
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Currently, motivated and created by research committees
• Recommend that at least two committee members participate in the
working party, one as co-chair
Committees can identify problems of current importance and bring resources to
bear
Can be in addition to or instead of call paper programs
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CASCOR considering working party only this year
Team approach gives critical mass necessary to tackle larger problems in a
more thorough and systematic fashion than individual researchers can
Group effort forces discussion during the production of the research
Enforcement of editorial and referencing standards
Encourages a thorough literature search as a necessary step in the process so
that current state of the science is documented
By utilizing a broad knowledge base, it encourages inclusion of research
produced outside the CAS
What’s wrong with the way
things are now?
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No keepers of the state of the science
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If the CAS wants to be the “pre-eminent resource in…conducting research in
casualty actuarial science,” a more proactive, systematic approach is required
Call Paper Programs
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Not generating discussion: solitary practitioners produce and present but there
is no context, follow-up or formal discussion
Inconsistent review and prize standards
Inconsistent appearance and structure of papers contributes to members’
filtration and overload problems
Not leading to systematic progress of the science
CAS Publications
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Impact and notoriety of PCAS outside the CAS is minimal
Conversely, impact of research conducted outside the CAS has little impact on
actuarial science
Forum is not a professional journal
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Not peer reviewed
Inclusive editorial policy
Can working parties really replace
the call paper programs?
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The short answer is NO
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The working party platform is not intended to stifle independent
research efforts
Participation in a working party requires a margin of selflessness as
credit will be diluted
Call paper programs occasionally produce stellar papers on self
contained topics that are too small or too specific in scope to warrant a
working party
The long answer is WELL, MAYBE, IF….
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Working parties are successful in delivering work products of good
quality and which are comprehensive in scope
There is an alternative forum that encourages individual initiatives
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Email discussion groups that offer a place to shape ideas and present
documents for informal peer review
COTOR-VALCON is a good prototype
What are the current working
parties?
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Current working parties are
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Correlations and Dependencies Among All Risk Sources
Executive Level Decision Making Using Dynamic Financial Analysis
Elicitation and Elucidation of Risk Preferences
Quantifying Variability in Reserves Estimates
Implication of Fair Value on Asset Allocation (no members)
Have they produced any papers?
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Not yet!
How are they working?
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Will hear today from members of current working parties on the practical
matters of implementation
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How they are structured
How they are parceling out work
How work is reported back to the group
How work is edited for inclusion in the group work product
Too early to tell if they are really being successful
Research Paper Template
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Standardized format for research papers has
been developed and is available on the CAS
website
Will give a consistent appearance and
structure to CAS research publications
Working parties, call paper programs and other
Forum submissions will be required to use it
from this point forward
Available for download on the CAS website
Review period open until March 19th
Research Taxonomy
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Hierarchical classification system for research work conducted within
the CAS
Approved by the research committee chairs for implementation in
September, 2003
Web based search tools will be developed to facilitate literature
searches over next 6-8 weeks
Migration of the Online Database of Actuarial Abstracts will begin after
that (about 4,000 citations)
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Volunteer workforce
Two rounds of review, with author as first reviewer whenever possible
Up to six categories per paper
Work is being overseen by Erin Clougherty, Information Specialist for
the CAS
Available for download on the CAS website
Review period open until March 19th
What does a “Research Initiatives
Coordinator” do anyway?
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Carries the working party message to the research
committees and encourages the formation of new working
parties
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Facilitates transfer of experience and solutions between
research committees and working parties
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Acts as a “Help Desk” to assist in wading through all of
this new research stuff
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Goes to every committee meeting and CAS seminar that
Don Mango can’t (which is all of them)