Two years ago, the CAS Reserves Committee (CASCOR) established the Reserving Research Hall of Fame (RRHOF) to honor and draw attention to important reserving-related research. The inaugural RRHOF class, announced at the 2016 Casualty Loss Reserve Seminar, included papers by Thomas Mack, Ronald Bornhuetter and Ronald Ferguson, and James Berquist and Richard Sherman.
To get the RRHOF started, CASCOR took the lead on selecting the initial round of inductees. But for the second round, CASCOR turned to the CAS membership to get their opinion. This past spring, CASCOR announced five nominees, and CAS members and interested parties were invited — via Weekly Bulletin emails, Facebook posts, LinkedIn posts, and tweets — to visit the RRHOF webpage and rank the nominees. CASCOR considered the rankings and the comments received when selecting the second class of inductees.
The second class, announced at the 2018 Casualty Loss Reserve Seminar, included a pair of authors and a relatively recent paper:
- Hans Bühlmann and James N. Stanard for their work in developing the Stanard-Bühlmann/Cape Cod method, and
- “On the Accuracy of Loss Reserving Methodology,” written by Tapio N. Boles and Andrew Jon Staudt and published in the CAS E-Forum in 2010.
Boles and Staudt were on hand at the 2018 CLRS to be recognized in person for their efforts.
CASCOR plans to induct a new class into the RRHOF every two to three years, and we want your input in selecting future nominees. RRHOF members can include papers, articles, presentations, models, an author’s body of work, and other reserve-related research. CASCOR encourages participants to consider the following criteria when reviewing potential RRHOF nominees and inductees:
- Originality and value added. Does the research introduce new concepts or provide new perspectives on existing research?
- Wide applicability. Can the concepts presented in the research be applied to a variety of property/casualty business situations?
- Frequently referenced. Has the research been frequently referenced or incorporated into other research?
- Readability and user-friendliness. Is the research presented in a way that is reasonably easy to grasp? Can practicing actuaries put the concepts to use? Is the research of reasonable size and clear as opposed to being overly long and technical?
- Test of time/staying power/lasting influence. Has sufficient time passed (maybe 5 years) to allow the research to be considered critically and put to use? During that time, has the research stayed relevant? How well has the research avoided negative reviews or commentary that is either compelling or widespread? Research that was considered favorably and widely used for many years before being replaced would still be considered to have had a lasting influence even if it has now lost some portion of its relevance.
Have an RRHOF nominee in mind? Tell us about it in the comment section below, or visit the RRHOF web page to submit an idea for the next class of honorees. And be sure to check out the RRHOF page for more information about the selection criteria and the first two classes of inductees.
