I am honored to be the incoming President of the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS), and I look forward to starting my term on November 8th. The CAS is the premier educator of property casualty actuaries in the world. We have nearly 8,000 members in 42 countries, and another 4,000 active candidates taking our exams every year. The CAS’s success is due to a number of factors, but two that stand out to me are:
- Our outstanding volunteers. Because of our close community of practice, one in three CAS members volunteer, allowing the CAS to continue to advance its educational goals; and
- The CAS staff’s hard work. Our staff is intelligent and fantastic at working collaboratively with our volunteers to optimize our efforts.
As I make plans for the year ahead, I would like to share with you my goals for my Presidential term. I appreciate any input you have on these goals.
- Represent the CAS by speaking at events and highlighting that the CAS is the gold standard in educating property and casualty actuaries.
- Continue to market The CAS Institute (iCAS) and support the iCAS Membership Implementation Committee.
- Respond to the NAIC’s comments on our education process.
- Finish the work of the Strategic Education Task Force, and continue to embrace innovation and add relevant new topics.
- Advance the CAS’s Diversity Strategy:
- Continue to support OLA (Organization of Latino Actuaries) and the IABA (International Association of Black Actuaries). I am thrilled that OLA was recently created as a nonprofit. I look forward to working with the leaders of OLA and the IABA to support their missions.
- Work with the IABA, OLA, the Actuarial Foundation, and SOA to expose minority high school students to the actuarial profession in Chicago. We will use Chicago as a test case to determine whether to expand this concept to other markets.
- Establish and implement a process for evaluating strategic partnerships.
- Form a subcommittee to begin the process of creating a Part 6 exam with Chinese regulatory content to offer in Mainland China. We will explore expanding this concept to other countries.
I’m looking forward to working with our volunteers and staff to accomplish these goals and more. What else should we aim to accomplish in 2017-18? Feel free to leave a comment on this blog post or contact me directly.
I am encouraged by the planned outreach programs in Chicago. The insurance industry, particularly the big firms and in technical positions, lacks much diversity – especially economic diversity. I find that most people grew up upper middle class. Insurance is a great field in need of young people, and I’d love to see more people from underprivileged backgrounds join.