Listen in as Anders Larson, FSA, MAAA, interviews Shea Parkes, FSA, MAAA about Random Forests.  Random Forests are a very important machine learning algorithm that all practitioners should be very comfortable with. They provide great performance with minimal tuning and headache. As a bonus, this session features what is hopefully much improved audio.

This is the second of a series of interviews sponsored by the Entrepreneurial & Innovation Section of the Society of Actuaries.  Each participant is an actuary that has chosen an unusual professional path, whether in an area where few actuaries have been before or in a traditional area but with a new business model or a unique role.  What these actuaries share in common is their entrepreneurial & innovative spirit. 

In this interview, Carlos Fuentes, President of Axiom Actuarial Consulting, FSA, and a member of the E&I Section shares with us highlights and learnings of his career both inside a large company and on his own. He also shares insights about working overseas, advice for new entrepreneurs, how to find outside vendors you can trust, and discusses his decision to obtain an MBA.

The new world order where disruptive economies, volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity prevail, poses tremendous challenges for actuaries. The focus of this podcast is to help actuaries understand how their ability to influence and lead is key to their success and impact.

This is the first of a series of interviews sponsored by the Entrepreneurial & Innovation Section of the Society of Actuaries.  Each participant is an actuary that has chosen an unusual professional path, whether in an area where few actuaries have been before or in a traditional area but with a new business model or a new role.  What these actuaries share in common is their entrepreneurial & innovation spirit.

In this interview, Stephen Camilli, shares with us highlights of his career that started as an actuarial assistant at Hewitt Associates.  Little he knew then that his actuarial education was going to serve him well in a variety of roles that for most actuaries lie outside the boundaries of the possible.   Stephen shares his views about the non-actuarial skills he developed along the way and discusses certain aspects of exam preparation.  As a former literary agent, Stephen also recommends some of his favorite books, including one written by a prisoner (a famous one) in a concentration camp.

Are you leading a virtual team or work virtually?  Hear about some ideas for a virtual "dream team".  At the 2016 Society of Actuaries Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, Frank Chechel, Zohair Motiwalla and Anne Katcher led an interactive workshop which took participants through two virtual team case studies.  This podcast shares a summary of the best ideas coming out of that session.

This article is part one of a two part series addressing product tax implications of the adoption of the 2017 CSO Tables. Part 1 describes the mortality requirements of sections 7702 and 7702A​. From the October 2016 Taxing Times. Written by John T. Adney, Craig Springfield and Brian King. Read by Dan Theodore, FSA, MAAA.

Listen in as Anders Larson, FSA, MAAA, interviews Shea Parkes, FSA, MAAA about ensemble predictive modeling.  The most accurate predictive models are not any single predictive model; they are ensembles of different models.  This discussion explores what types of ensembles are common, and some of the theory that explains their surprising power.  Understanding some of this theory can help you identify problems or individual models that might benefit most from ensembling.

Investment Section Chair, Jeff Passmore, FSA, EA, FCA and Vice-Chair Kelly Featherstone, FSA, ACIA discuss the council strategic plan to double the value of Investment Section membership for the next five years.

Joe Slater FSA, MAAA talks about how under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), all groups with 50 or less employees will eventually be subject to the ACA’s modified community rating rules. While some groups will see lower premiums than they would have without the ACA, others will see significant premium increases. Though self-funding has historically only been a realistic option for groups with at least a few hundred employees, the premium disruption and potential loss of business caused by the ACA has incentivized insurance carriers and third party administrators to develop self-funded product offerings for small groups. These products are commonly referred to as Level Funding products.

Dave Petta, FSA, MAAA and Karen Shelton, FSA, MAA discuss their article on Private Exchanges published in the May 2015 issue of HealthWatch  Listen as they describe the tenets of Private Exchanges, how they differ from Public exchanges and their current outlook.