Join us for a panel discussion on the role of professionalism in actuarial work. This session will feature case studies that demonstrate how upholding high standards of professionalism impacts the daily work of actuaries.

Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the importance of professionalism in their work and decision-making. The panel’s insights will be invaluable to this discussion, providing a wealth of experience and knowledge for all attendees.

Moderator: Kulin Patel, KA Pandit

Panel: Preeti Chandrashekhar, President, IAI and Kalpana Shah, Immediate Past-President, IFoA

Actuarial skills are increasingly in demand from industries far removed from actuaries’ traditional domain of financial services. Andrew Smith describes some extraordinary actuarial assignments from his own career and those of his students.

Speaker: Andrew Smith, University College Dublin

Join us for an insightful panel discussion that explores the evolving role of actuaries as leaders beyond their traditional technical expertise. This session will delve into the diverse leadership positions actuaries are now embracing and the essential skillsets needed to succeed in these roles.

Drawing from the panel’s extensive leadership experience, their journeys and strategies will offer invaluable insights to all attendees. The discussion will focus on the actuary as a leader, aiming to inspire and equip attendees with practical takeaways from the experiences of distinguished actuarial leaders.

Moderator: Anurag Rastogi, IAI Council Member

Panel: Hiten Kothari, HDFC ERGO General Insurance, Samit Upadhyay, Tata AIA, Sunil Sharma, RGA and Hariharan Mani, PwC AIMS

It is widely thought that Indian’s code on social security , 2020’ will soon be notified. This introduces some significant expansion to the retirement and other social security benefits to the working population, especially for unorganised and gig/platform workers. There are extensive actuarial, financing design, and administrative considerations in the social security programmes in India.

Speakers: Kulin Patel, K.A Pandit and Jayesh Pandit, K.A

This session will focus on post-implementation challenges and provide clarity on the ‘HOW’ of IFRS 17 requirements, preparing attendees for IndAS 117 in India.

Speaker: Suruchi Bhargava, K.A Pandit

Join us for an engaging session on the expanding role of artificial intelligence in the banking and financial services sector. We’ll explore the diverse applications of AI and discuss it’s potential for future growth.

Speakers: Atreyee Bhattacharyya, Star Health and Allied Insurance, Debashish Banerjee, Deloitte, Mitali Chatterjee, Swiss Re, Namit Chopra, EXL and Sunil Kumar, SAM Corporate

Actuaries have been thinking about how climate change affects the financial sector since at least 2017, when the IFoA issued a risk alert on this subject.

Speaker: Hetal Patel, Phoenix Group

A discussion on the recent and upcoming changes in insurance regulations. The session aims to give insights on how varying international regulatory frameworks are adapting to new risks, new reporting norms, technological innovations and economic conditions.

Speakers: Akshay Dhande, Canara HSBC Life, P.K Arora, IRDAI, Prechhya Mathema, Actuarial Society of Nepal and Rajan Nirubasingham

This session will provide a snapshot of how AI and ML are transforming actuarial work, with a focus on interpretable models. The presentation will delve into how shapely values, drawn from game theory , enhance machine learning model interpretability without compromising accuracy – a crucial factor in the regulated insurance sector and hence the importance of explainable AI.

Speakers: Satya Sai Mudigonda, Sri  Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning and Rohan Yashraj Gupta, Sri  Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning

Periodic payment orders (PPOs) are a way of compensating an injured insured for any resulting reduction in their quality of life and covering the cost of care. They’re an alternative to lump sum settlements. While the concept primarily applies in the UK, the aim of this talk is to impart knowledge about this kind of claim settlement, its peculiarities, and the uncertainties it brings.

We will cover the dependency of PPO propensity on Ogden rates used for valuing lump sum settlements, and talk about the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, a key assumption in modelling PPOs. Using the annual survey results of the IFoA’s PPO Working Party, we will bring in trends in the way PPOs are awarded and valued.

We will draw parallels to how injury claims are settled in the Indian market and examine if there is a need to evaluate the feasibility of having PPOs here, discussing the pros and cons.

This will be a technical knowledge-sharing session and will be hybrid, with one working party member attending the conference in person and another online.

Speakers: Tvisha Gupta, RSA, Justin Thomas, Acorn Insurance, and Chris Francis, WTW

The insurance industry is constantly evolving and with the increasing complexity of risks, there is a growing need for structured reinsurance solutions.

Traditionally, reinsurance acts as a catalyst for industry expansion by providing insurers with the necessary financial support and risk mitigation tools. Through structured reinsurance solutions, insurers can tailor their products more effectively and efficiently to ensure comprehensive protection while achieving the required financial KPIs.

There are a few solutions widely executed by insurers in Asia to enhance their new product launches and to manage their sizeable enforce portfolios efficiently. Three common structured reinsurance solutions are:

• upfront reinsurance commissions on investment linked products
• mass lapse reinsurance solution
• asset coinsurance reinsurance solution

In this session, Wilson Lai of Gallagher Re will share an overview of the solutions listed above, as well as client motivations, key considerations, and how these solutions are applicable to the L&H insurers in India, based on experience executing them.

Speaker: Wilson Lai, Gallagher Re

The insurance underwriting cycle is important from a financial stability perspective, as insurers are more prone to face underwriting losses during a soft market. The forecasting underwriting cycle could help insurers improve profit. But there are some pertinent questions that need to be addressed, including:

• are the underwriting cycles real and explainable?
• even if they exist, can they at all be objectified through a forecasting model?
• can an auto-regression time series model be appropriate to explain the documented cyclicality?
• are there any models, other than the auto regressive model, that capture the cycle more appropriately?
• which variables can be used to quantify this insurance phenomenon?

This interactive presentation will attempt to address these questions, discuss some documented techniques to forecast the underwriting cycle, and assess the impact of unusual (catastrophic) events.

All in all, the session will make a comparative assessment to see if it is worth trying to forecast the underwriting cycle. How can we navigate the challenges and successfully forecast the cycle? This will help insurers take proactive actions to deal with the underwriting cycle.

This will be a high-level session with a touch of technical application. It should be of interest to actuaries at all levels with an interest in general insurance market dynamics and a knack for statistical modelling.

Speaker: Dhrubo Banerjee, Swiss Re

Actuaries can model liability cashflows, analyse these numbers, and report on them. However, the role of assets is not seen at this level, or the analysis generally excludes asset modelling and assets analysis.

In this session we plan to cover the niche area within actuarial services around the role of assets and how these assets are modelled depending upon the type of liability being modelled. The session aims to cover:

• types of assets and their features
• modelling of assets in presence of liabilities, including different asset assumptions
• BS and IS in presence of assets
• how to bring judgement around asset allocation for liabilities
• rules around asset allocation
• bringing reinvestment into the picture and associated reinvestment strategy

The session is intended to be delivered in person including a high-level overview of the role of assets within actuarial modelling and valuation. This will be a new area for everyone, as very few companies offer asset modelling now.

Speakers: Monika Goyal and Adarsh Goenka, Accenture