Borrowing of library books while IFoA Libraries are closed
Both IFoA Edinburgh and IFoA London member lounges and library areas remain closed to all visitors. The IFoA will update in due course on further developments with consideration of public health advice.
The Library Service has resumed a postal loan service for print books available at the IFoA London and Edinburgh offices. Please use the IFoA Library catalogue to search for, find and request to borrow printed books. If local to the London office, you may be able to collect or return library books in person at Holborn Gate building ground floor reception by prior arrangement for a day of visit, after first emailing the Library team.
eLibrary resources available while IFoA Libraries are closed
The Actuarial Knowledge Hub routes you to online resources for study, professional development and research. You can follow links to Ebsco 'eBook collection' and ProQuest 'eBook Central', two providers of eBooks, or search the Hub for topic keywords to retrieve articles from subscribed journals.
e-book resources newly added: IFoA members who login to the Actuarial Knowledge Hub at http://discovery.actuaries.org.uk can now read Risk.net Academic’s published resources online on desktop and laptop devices. After member login, find Risk.net on the Hub page, then ‘Institute and Faculty of Actuaries’ on its institutional sign-in and follow the Risk.net site's links to (Risk) 'Books' or (Risk) 'Journals' for articles.
Please contact the Library team if you have any enquiries.
Library resources for IFoA exams
The current Curriculum guides students to supporting resources for respective subjects as they prepare for IFoA examinations in the syllabus. For most examination subjects, the IFoA Library offers 'Resources' pages listing suggested additional reading and references. These can complement subject syllabus study and there are also some textbooks that form core reading for examinations CB2, SP6 and SP9.
For the curriculum's new Banking examinations, there are new lists of resources for SP10 (Banking Principles) and for SA10 (Banking Advanced). These help to locate 'Additional reading' identified by the Actuarial Society of South Africa (ASSA) in its B100 and B200 exam books that set the reading for ASSA and other actuarial association members registering for these exams.
After member login to the Actuarial Knowledge Hub, IFoA members and students can follow 'Access ebook' links to book titles listed on the Resources pages for each exam subject. eBooks of more suggested titles complementing IFoA exam study are being added where available to help students, especially those for whom borrowing and return of print library books may not be cost-effective.
Staple Inn Actuarial Society papers. The SIAS website also offers a news page for students to find these SIAS papers suggested for additional reading for SA exam subjects. Click on the exam subject to reveal SIAS papers of interest.
The Economist country reports
By licence with The Economist Intelligence Unit, the IFoA Library offers access to the latest EIU country report for the United Kingdom, France, Germany, United States, China, and Japan to support students preparing the IFoA SA7 exam with background reading on recent trends. You can access the latest country report as issued, once you have first logged in to your account on the IFoA website. Follow the links to the respective reports on the 'Resources for Subject SA7 Investment and Finance Advanced' page to access. There is no access to archived or previous country reports so it is advised to log in regularly for the latest monthly or yearly report.
IFoA eLibrary and 'Actuarial Knowledge Hub'
The eLibrary is now available to members and affiliates who log in via the IFoA website with their IFoA member credentials here. Upon login, IFoA members open the 'Actuarial Knowledge Hub', an integrated research portal. The Hub brings together several distinct sources of research in actuarial science in one search:
- The online journals and ebooks available to IFoA members;
- The valuable catalogue of over 30,000 abstracts and references from journals worldwide built up over many decades by library staff;
- The IFoA library catalogue and its 20,000 records of hard copy holdings;
- A complete index of Actuary magazine features;
- The catalogue of historic rare books collected by the Faculty and Institute since their formation and added to this day on the history and development of actuarial science;
- Thousands of relevant references from research databases across the world.
Among the journal collections available are archives of the Annals of Actuarial Science and British Actuarial Journal and also the European Actuarial Journal, the Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance, Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, the Journal of Risk and Insurance, the North American Actuarial Journal, and the Scandinavian Actuarial Journal.
Members also have access to over 300 eBooks, from titles to support exam reading to insurance, pensions, risk management and general business books.
Upon request, the IFoA Library Service can set up individual 'Athens' accounts for non-members registered to sit the IFoA's next CM1, CS1 or SP9 exams for a limited period.
To find out more contact the library service at libraries@actuaries.org.uk or access the Knowledge Hub as a guest user at http://discovery.actuaries.org.uk. to find references for research on your subject enquiry.
IFoA Library catalogue
The Library Service now offers an upgraded online library catalogue that covers all library resources and now includes historical holdings published before 1901 that can be viewed at the Library by arrangement. Members and affiliates can send a request to the IFoA Library Service to borrow selected results of those printed resources available for loan or export selected catalogue references into a reading list. Access the Library catalogue at: http://library.actuaries.org.uk
The library offers search links to new additions to its catalogue by broad subjects. Alternatively, this search of the catalogue finds added books and ebooks published since 2018.
External study: Arrangements for IFoA students to use external university and other local library facilities
IFoA students seeking alternative library study space can apply to local university libraries for a non-university library card subject to their admissions policy. The IFoA Library can provide a letter of introduction to support your application to a university or another library facility – please contact libraries@actuaries.org.uk.
Please note that university libraries prioritise access and study spaces for their students especially during busier university exam periods.
International Actuarial Association, Actuaries Without Borders – ‘Book drive’ donation scheme
Do you have textbooks no longer used from past exam studies? The IAA has a ‘Book drive’ scheme inviting those wishing to pledge book titles listed as requested by overseas universities for their actuarial courses. Financial donations to the scheme are also welcome.
Contact Details
For any library enquiries please contact:
We try to respond to email queries within one working day. Researcher access to historical resources may require notice in advance of visit in order to retrieve items from storage.
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Events calendar
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Climate Solvency The Actuaries Carbon Collaboration: Applying Actuarial Concepts to Carbon Emissions
6 July 2022The Actuaries’ Carbon Collaboration (ACC) is a group of actuaries and other professionals working towards a coherent understanding of the issues around greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by considering them in an actuarial context.
Emissions into and absorption from the atmosphere can be modelled in the same way that we model variable cash flows, including the impacts of uncertain quantities and timing. The ACC’s work investigates both the insights that this analogy provides and its limitations.
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Sessional Meeting: Data and Modelling Considerations for mental health in life insurance
11 July 2022This talk presents the work of the Data and Modelling workstream of the IFoA Mental Health Working Party. We explore data and modelling considerations in the risk assessment and underwriting of mental health conditions. We will also consider how newer risk factors and improved data availability might open up opportunities for additional underwriting and product designs.
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Pensions Dashboards
12 July 2022As the industry prepares for Pensions Dashboards, we have lined up a specialist panel who is at the heart of the ongoing work in this area. Hear the latest developments, future proposals and have the opportunity to put forward your questions to our speakers.
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Crisis Management and Boards
18 July 2022Crisis management, the process by which an organization deals with a disruptive, sudden and unexpected event that threatens to harm the organization or its stakeholders, has become a key concern in the light of the Pandemic and Geopolitical risks.
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Applying AI – From Concept to Practice
19 July 2022Artificial Intelligence is heralded as a game-changer to the ways industries use data, with the insurance industry especially looking to embrace these new technologies. This brings many questions – not least around data privacy, ethics, potential biases and so on – with regulators increasingly interested in developments.
Moreover, whilst the stunning progress of specific technologies such as Watson and Alphazero made headlines some years ago, current commercial applications of AI remain far from mature.
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This webinar will cover:
• Some background on the risks of misselling in an ESG context, including the DWS case
• Achieving positive impact is a strong antidote to the risks of greenwashing or ESG misselling, however this risks having a tension with fiduciary responsibilities
• This tension can be resolved with a concept called Universal Ownership
• Under Universal ownership, investors have an appetite to make a loss in order to achieve positive impact, and yet still have no compromise on their fiduciary responsibilities
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This session will focus on the transformation roadmap of the healthcare sector in KSA and the role of actuarial capabilities in enhancing its evolution to the desired end stage as per the objectives of the Vision 2030. The discussion will focus how the system has evolved so far and shed light on the expected future changes. Through examining the transformation, we will highlight how the sector is and can use actuarial expertise to not only assist with this transformation but also use basic actuarial principles to identify the key risks and their respective mitigation strategies.
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Sessional Meeting: Covid-19 and the Effectiveness of ERM Frameworks
Online15 August 2022The purpose of this research paper is to explore enterprise risk management lessons which can be learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic in preparation for potential future pandemics as well as other “gray rhino” or “black swan” events. This paper is not intended to be an all-encompassing solution to the issues presented by Covid-19; rather, the content has been provided to help drive discussions regarding how risk management processes may need to evolve in line with the dynamic nature of the underlying risks that they sometimes need to capture.
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The IFoA's Infrastructure Working Party, led by Chris Lewin, will present its new introductory guide to infrastructure investment, which will be published on the IFoA web-site prior to the webinar. Those readers whose institutions have already taken the plunge into infrastructure will know that it is a highly complex and diverse field of activity. This guide does not explore all the matters which investors take into account, but it does discuss many of the more important points, including the risks and past returns, benchmarking, and ESG and SDG considerations. Attendees will be invi
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Health – Our Greatest Asset
2 November 2022Health contributes to happiness at the personal, family, community and societal level. Health, importantly underpins all our economic security. This talk will explore the drivers of our health, the measurement of health and the steps we can take to improve health – most of which lie outside the NHS.