American Academy of Actuaries

I'm Kara Clark, and I will be your host for today.

Joining me today are Patrick Wiese, Associate of the Society of Actuaries and Modeling Researcher at the Society of Actuaries Research Institute, and Martin Hill, Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, member of the American Academy of Actuaries, and Fellow of the Conference of Consulting Actuaries.

who is also the chairperson of the Mortality Improvement Subcommittee of the SOA's Retirement Plans Experience Committee.

Patrick and Marty, welcome to the podcast.

Hello, my name is David Nolan, and I'm the host of Actuary Voices, the podcast from the American Academy of Actuaries.

Today, I'm chatting with Monique Hacker, a life actuary with New York Life, a former board member for the International Association of Black Actuaries, and our first return guest, who has an interesting story to tell, one that we didn't get to last time.

Monique, welcome to Actuary Voices.

But I also include the opportunity.

What is it going to teach me? Like, what am I going to learn about? Will I be challenged? And will I make an impact? A lot of it is what impact can I make in the role? And whether it's on different individuals or whether it's on the impact on what I'm learning and what I can give back to the company, that's usually what I base it on is how much can I develop and how much can I give back?

Let me take a moment to remind listeners that you are listening to Actuary Voices, the podcast from the American Academy of Actuaries.

On this podcast, we talk to Academy volunteers and leaders, as well as friends of the Academy, about what inspires them about their work, both professionally or as a friend of or volunteer with the Academy.

Please subscribe to Actuary Voices on your preferred podcast platform.

Welcome back to the Association Insights Podcast powered by Onward and Upward.

I'm your host, Colleen Gallagher, and today I'm excited to welcome back Preeti Vasistha, Director of Content and Editor-in-Chief at the American Academy of Actuaries.

It's been more than a year since Preeti joined us and a lot has changed.

So today we're going to shift the conversation from the tools of the job to leadership.

I work at Cuver Holdings, which is based in Chicago, Illinois.

I hold the, uh, FSA and AAA designation with the Society of Actuaries.

I have been an actuary for almost two decades now.

Um, so I've been, um, mostly in, um...

If this were Athene, with its $314 billion net invested assets on the one side, and a smattering of, say, far smaller Cayman-based reinsurers, trade groups such as the Cayman International Reinsurance Companies Association, and promotional bodies on the other side, then one might well expect Athene to get its wish or its recommendation for no undue delays.

But the fact that those beseeching the association for at least a deceleration in the project include 20,000 members of the American Academy of Actuaries, 275 lifers that command between them 94% of US life industry assets and belong to the American Council of Life Insurers, the Wisconsin-headquartered Northwestern Mutual Life, which admittedly has a Cayman reinsurer in its group, and the Illinois-headquartered Everlake, for which the same can be said, well, it all paints the standoff in a somewhat different light.

In double quick time, the Life RBC Working Group of NAIC will now presumably have to defend a speedy drafting process to all the interested parties, and also justify why it really does not warrant taking more time.

The longer the whole process lasts, the better Cayman's chances of winning a dilution of elements that are disadvantageous to its own underwriters, most prominently the intention to apply the charge without exception across non-reciprocal jurisdictions.

[upbeat music] Hello, welcome to Actuary Voices, the podcast for the American Academy of Actuaries.

I'm your host for this episode, Ted Gotch, and today we will be peeling back the curtain on something foundational to everything we do here at the American Academy of Actuaries, research.

I'll be speaking with Dr. Kim Ferrero, the academy's assistant director of research, and Dr. Julia Goodwin, the academy's senior research analyst, about the organization's research work in an effort to gain a better understanding of all the kinds of things we do in the policy arena.

Both Kim and Julie work on projects that touch upon the academy's mega issues.

So for example, if a regulatory threshold shifts, how does that ripple through market capacity and affordability and consumer access? As you put it, we act as a bridge.

We're an analytical bridge.

Academy research can do heavy data lifting.

You know, we do sensitivity testing.

Asymmetrical indeed.

I remember the industry was pushing hard for a symmetrical approach, and the Academy of Actuaries even proposed an alternative.

Why did the regulators decide to stick with the asymmetrical version?

In their response, the Reinsurance Task Force said that this collateral requirement only impacts reinsurance in jurisdictions where collateral is required, meaning those jurisdictions that haven't been fully vetted by the NEAC.

Some agreed with limiting it strictly to PRT to adapt quickly as a near-term solution for that fast-growing market.

However, others preferred expanding the scope to all payout annuities without policyholder optionality to keep rules consistent.

Ultimately, regulators decided to go through a thorough long-term project developed in conjunction with American Academy of Actuaries aiming for a 2028 deadline.

So that one is parked for now, but definitely a space to watch.

So that's where we're going today.

And we're going to be talking to the editor in chief and director of content at the American Academy of Actuaries.

We're talking about marketing and communications, how it's evolved in the association space, why MarCom leaders increasingly need to be strategic partners rather than just the people who execute the message.

We're going to be talking about old school magazines within the associations and how that's evolved and why having MarCom leaders at the table when decisions are being made can make the entire organization stronger.

We have members who are experts in their fields.

But you also have a responsibility to communicate why their expertise matters.

Currently, I'm the Director of Content and Editor-in-Chief at the American Academy of Actuaries.

And when I was thinking about this question, it's the funny thing is when I look back, the engineering background makes a lot of sense now because it taught me to look for structure and understand how things work.

[upbeat music] Hello, my name is David Nolan, and I'm the host of Actuary Voices, the podcast on the American Academy of Actuaries.

Today, I'm chatting with Kyle Wang, who is an Academy volunteer and chairperson of the Academy's Life Experience and Assumptions Committee.

Kyle, welcome to Actuary Voices.

I'm so delighted you could join us.

So fortunately, with that experience, I have my opportunity to start expanding my actuarial profession to various areas such as valuation, pricing, casual testing, government relationship over there, and also a lot of regulatory changes that I'm working as of now.

So with time going, and I believe all the tech new skills are still very important in my job, and at the same time, I feel like the communication, leadership, collaborations become more and more important in my current work.

And then also, I believe in the previous decades, Society of the Actuaries and also American Academy for, of Actuaries, they put a lot of efforts to emphasize those softer skills, changing their materials for the study materials and also continuous education requests to help the young actuaries to emphasize and learning those softer skills in actuarial areas.

I would say last but not least, you know, I've been involved in the volunteering through the Academy, through the So- Society of Actuaries, and then this volunteering experience really helping me a lot and also now working with a lot of the experts in the industry and trying to understanding the industry trends of the actuarial science.