• Asia Conference 2021

About this event

 

We have made it through 2020 but the COVID-19 crisis continues to have a significant impact on individuals, societies, businesses and the wider economy across the globe. Navigating the world post COVID-19 in an uncertain and highly unstable time brings along many uncertainties, challenges and exciting opportunities. Hence the theme of this year’s IFoA Asia Conference Webinar Series is “Risk. Adapt. Thrive.”

Join a prestigious line-up of intellectual thought leaders, senior industry players, opinion formers, academics and actuaries from across Asia and beyond at this landmark event from 26-30 July. A series of webinars across fields such as life and general insurance, health and care, banking and investment, data analytics, risk management, climate change, sustainability and many more awaits. This will be the perfect opportunity for you to discover, ask questions and be at the forefront of current and developing actuarial topics and trends in Asia.

Please note that all webinar timings are in Singapore Time (SGT). SGT is 7 hours ahead of BST.

Workshop Mon, 26/07/2021 - 11:00 - 12:15 Know what’s on the mind of key industry leaders – Key concerns and opportunities for better organizations

This part presentation / part panel session discusses outcomes from the research thesis “An exploration of Organizational Effectiveness – a study of the Life (Re)Insurance industry”. The body of research covers 14 interviews with CEOs and MDs from Europe to Asia and incorporates both insurer and reinsurer views. It shines a light in an under-researched area to provide insight for leaders and managers within the Life Insurance industry for ways to better guide organisations for improved effectiveness. We will discuss the key outcomes namely Actuarial Groupthink, Leadership, Organizational Design and Mindsets. Join me and three prominent industry leaders to discuss the areas where we can evolve our organisations, our teams and ourselves, right now.

Speakers:

Bryce Shepherd leads PartnerRe Asia-Pacific newly created Client Solution function, having previously been Head of Strategy and responsible for the market and client strategy development and execution. His background is in Actuarial (Pricing and Product) and has experience covering multiple international markets including Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Asia. His interests are in developing digital and data driven propositions and solutions.
Bryce is a qualified Actuary (FIA) and holds both a Bachelor of Science degree with honours (majoring in Bioinformatics) and a recently completed Master of Science in Business Management, majoring in Leadership and Innovation, where his dissertation focus was on Organisational Effectiveness.

Tan Suee Chieh is President of the IFoA and an independent non-executive director of several organizations. 

From 2013 to 2017, he was the Group Chief Executive at NTUC Enterprise - the holding entity of the NTUC social enterprises (cooperatives) in Singapore. The group has businesses in Retail; Food & Beverage; Financial Services; Education & Training services; Eldercare services and Property. From 2007 to 2013, Suee Chieh was the Chief Executive of NTUC Income, a composite cooperative insurer and one of the largest insurance businesses in Singapore. .

Between 2003 and 2006, he was President, Asia Pacific of the SHL Group Ltd, a British psychometric and psychological consultancy firm. From 1981 to 2001, Suee Chieh was with the Prudential Group and held several senior positions including Actuary of Prudential Malaysia, Chief Executive of Prudential Singapore and Regional Managing Director, Established Markets of Prudential Corporation Asia.

Sean Deehan is the Market Leader for Insurance Consulting and Technology, Hong Kong at Willis Towers Watson

Sean has over 24 years of life insurance and pensions experience, including more than 8 years in Mainland China and Hong Kong

Sean is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (FFA) and has a Global Executive MBA from INSEAD business school

Annie Choy is currently the CEO of Innosenze Private Limited, a new start up involved in the commercialisation of an innovation platform that was developed and patented by SUTD / MIT professor.
Prior to this role, Annie was the Managing Director of IBM Singapore Private Ltd. After working in for IBM for over 20 years, she has decided to retire from IBM on 31st Dec 2017 to pursue other interests.

Workshop Mon, 26/07/2021 - 14:00 - 15:00 Climate - Modelling Challenges for the Next Big Financial Risk

The global pandemic has highlighted once again the importance of considering emerging risks and risks originating from sources outside of the recent historical record. The move towards an increased understanding of climate risk in insurance asset management has been slowly gathering pace for the last decade. However, in the last twelve months the topic has gained in importance in the eyes of central banks, regulators, and industry bodies. In this talk we describe the latest developments in this area and how we can apply scenario analysis to existing regulatory capital models to give insights into climate risk on the asset side of the balance sheet.

Speaker: 

Matthew Lightwood is responsible for quantitative modeling and providing technical expertise to support both prospective and new clients using the GEMS® economic scenario generator. He is also the product lead on climate risk modelling globally for Conning Risk Solutions. Prior to joining Conning in 2010, he was a Senior Risk Consultant, where he was responsible for financial modeling, managing and implementing large professional services projects for financial clients. Matthew is a graduate of the University of Manchester and University College London, where he earned a BSC (HONS) in Physics with Astrophysics and a Ph.D in High Energy Particle Physics.

Workshop Mon, 26/07/2021 - 16:00 - 17:30 The Actuary Reimagined from the lens of Diversity & Inclusion

Free to attend

Actuarial Science as a profession is truly global. Unlike many other professions where qualifications often require local examinations, actuaries can travel the world professionally and practice anywhere in the world. Our profession inherently supports diversity and inclusion and this is what is special in the new world we are living in now – one that seems distant yet has become interconnected as we experienced how quicky Coronavirus got itself into every part of the world far and wide. As Actuaries, we must take advantage of our profession’s unique edge of fundamentally being global, and adapt to thrive in this new world.

Is our current understanding of diversity too limited, and what does this mean for us, our teams, our companies and most importantly, our customers. As Actuaries, we know we have the right foundation, the technical ability, resilience and global reach. So questions we must continue to ask ourselves: how do we now adapt to reflect the diversity of the population e.g. alternative gender definitions and cross border relationships; how do we re-examine and explore new ways of product design and underwriting; has coronavirus left us a re-set on mortality tables; and what impact the fourth Industrial Revolution is going to have on the Actuarial Profession. Training needs to continue to evolve to attract the new generation of Actuaries, with the attractions of AI, analytics, digital advancement being brought to the fore so that we can fully understand and appreciate how these are shifting our application to become customer centric, and how and what we used to do – number crunching and modelling – will be replaced by computers and automation.

Speakers:

Anusha Thavarajah, Allianz

Anusha Thavarajah is Allianz’s Regional CEO, Life & Health for Asia Pacific. She is responsible for the development of Allianz’s Life & Health business in Asia to meet Allianz Asia’s long-term strategic priorities. Anusha is a member of Allianz Asia’s Regional Executive Board, which is responsible for setting and executing Allianz’s growth strategy in Asia.

Anusha joined Allianz Asia in December 2019 from AIA Bhd., where she was the CEO.  Anusha has 30 years’ experience in financial services having served in senior leadership roles in the UK, Hong Kong and Malaysia. 

Anusha graduated with First Class Honours in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Birmingham. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, United Kingdom and Fellow of the Malaysian Insurance Institute.

Hitesh Shah, SCOR Re, Independent Non-Executive Director

Robert Chen, Taiping Life Insurance, Deputy CFO and CRO

Workshop Tue, 27/07/2021 - 09:30 - 10:30 Agility in health – how dynamic pricing analytics could help health insurers improve profitability

Dynamic pricing is commonly used in the motor insurance industry where pricing has become very competitive with the emergence of insurance aggregators. In order to stay ahead of their competitors, insurers need to not only be better in accurately predicting and pricing risk, but also in understanding their customers.

In health, insurers may not change their premiums as often, but they do have access to a vast amount of data which could allow them to better predict risk and also better understand their customers.

In this presentation we will break down the building blocks of dynamic pricing that give insurers the competitive edge in motor insurance and explore how these core elements could be applied to health insurance to help drive profitable growth.

Speaker:

Lydia Williamson is an Associate Director with Willis Towers Watson in their Insurance Consulting and Technology team based in Singapore. She has more than 12 years’ professional experience and has been a specialist health actuary for the last 7 years. Before joining WTW Lydia was a health actuary with a health administrator and managed care organization in South Africa, where she was responsible for pricing, reserving and product development for client schemes. She was also responsible for providing strategic health risk management advice to clients in partnership with managed care experts. At WTW Lydia leads the development of strategic analytics solutions to assist life insurers across Asia with implementing health risk management strategies using WTW’s proprietary pricing and analytics software solutions.

Workshop Tue, 27/07/2021 - 11:00 - 12:00 A journey to the digital world: Innovation drives the future success for Asia Pacific (re)insurers

COVID-19 has made a huge impact to the insurance industry. On the brighter side, it has accelerated the speed of innovation and digitization.

Asia comprises of a wide range of diversified markets and each market has its distinct features. An Asia-wide innovation survey was conducted earlier in the year to collect views from the industry around the innovation status for the participating companies.

AM Best, the global rating agency, has provided an innovation scoring framework for assessing innovation levels for insurance companies. In this study, the outcomes from the innovation survey and AM Best innovation assessment will be shared. It will focus on the unique features of each market in the Asia Pacific region, including markets that are more matured (e.g. Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand), still developing and fast emerging (China, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippine and Indonesia). The presentation will cover a high-level overview of the state of innovation in the region, as well as any factors behind supporting or dragging the development of innovation for Asia insurers – both Life and Non-Life.

The presentation comprises of two main sections. The first part provides an overview of the state of digitization/innovation in the APAC insurance industry. The second part covers some real-life case studies on how the markets have been disrupted by digitization and innovation.

Speakers:

Yuan Tian is currently working for AM Best as a Senior Financial Analyst in Singapore. She moved to Singapore from London with her family in 2018. While in the UK, she worked for several insurance and reinsurance companies including XL Catlin, Chaucer and AXA. She is a qualified actuary and had experience in pricing, reserving, risk management and data analytics. She had a degree in Mathematics from University of Cambridge and a Master degree in Applied Statistics from University of Oxford.

Charchit Agrawal is a qualified actuary with over 12 years of experience in general insurance, spread across the UK and Asia, and split equally between consulting and the industry. He is an active volunteer with the IFoA, notably through the GI International Asia working party as well as the Chief Examiner for SP7 exam. He is a strong believer in that actuaries can do a lot more to help insurance companies make key business decision than the traditional roles allow them to.

Based in Kuala Lumpur, Charchit is now working for NMG Consulting as a Principal Consultant after a 3-year stint as an appointed actuary for a general insurer.

Workshop Tue, 27/07/2021 - 14:00 - 15:00 Why ESG investing has moved to the C-Suite

Listen to a conversation between Michael Lewis (Head of ESG Research) and Marlon Rockenfeller (Head of Insurance Strategy & Advisory), where together they will discuss the increasing muscle of regulators regarding ESG. They will also:

  • assess how the European regulator EIOPA is addressing the issue and how this may influence the rest of the world and real-life outcomes
  • explore the march of ESG, which is region dependent, but, with investment risk management at its heart
  • explain why insurers have moved to the front line of ESG and climate risk considerations and how ESG and reputation are affecting the risk-taking capacity and investment decision-making of insurance companies
  • examine whether ESG considerations enhance the risk profile and the next steps insurers need to take in order to compete on a global level.

The presentation will be focusing more on how ESG influence investment decisions rather than liabilities portfolio.

Speakers:

Michael Lewis joined DWS in 2015 with responsibility for the division’s ESG thematic research.

Prior to his current role, Michael was Global Head of Commodities Research in the Corporate Banking & Securities division of Deutsche Bank. In 2013, the Commodities Research team was ranked #2 in the EMEA Institutional Investor Equity and Fixed Income Research team survey.

Before this, Michael was the Deputy Head of FX Research at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell. In 2000, the FX Research team was ranked #1 in the Euromoney FX Research survey.

Michael began his career as a Research analyst covering Global Macro & Rates research at Morgan Grenfell. Michael holds a B.Sc. in Economics from the University of Bristol and a M.Sc. in Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science.

Marlon Rockenfeller joined DWS in October 2015 and is responsible for Global Insurance Strategy and Advisory. Prior to his current role, Marlon was Co-Head of Insurance and Pension Solutions EMEA. Before joining DWS, Marlon worked for Barclays Capital Markets Division in multi asset solutions structuring for institutional clients across Europe. His clientele was predominantly insurance and pension clients.

He started his career in structured solutions sales for insurance companies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland at RBS covering fixed income, credit and equity structures.

Workshop Tue, 27/07/2021 - 16:00 - 17:30 Rethinking Risk Models after the Global Financial Crisis

Free to attend

The financial and economic crisis that started in 2007 and that continues affecting the global economy has prompted many of us to rethink risk modelling and how best to manage risk functions worldwide. In this session, the speaker will cover the following areas:
• What has the global financial crisis taught us?
• What is risk from the perspectives of policyholders, shareholders and regulators?
• How to deal with risk management dilemmas?
o Balance sheet ratios vs risk-based capital
o Internal models, regulatory capital and the use test
• Is short term risk management the enemy of long term returns?
• What does the future hold for actuaries in risk modelling?

 

Speakers:

Andrew Smith is an internationally renowned actuary who specialises in the application of advanced mathematical and statistical methods to solve problems in the financial services industry. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at University College Dublin (UCD). Prior to joining UCD, Andrew worked for many years as a consulting actuary and was a partner at Deloitte from 2001 to 2017. He has published many papers in insurance, pensions and financial matters, and won a number of prizes for his research. The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries awarded Andrew a Finlaison Medal in 2008, and elected him an Honorary Fellow in 2015.

Zainal Abidin Mohd Kassim, Actuarial Partners, Senior Partner

Raymond Cheung, Alpha Millennia Technology, Founder  

Workshop Wed, 28/07/2021 - 11:00 - 12:00 Defining Insurance Risks – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The value of Machine Learning (ML) rests in a reliable set of pre-defined data. It follows then, that using ML to define insurance risks first needs consensus on what exactly a "Good" or "Bad" risk is. Yet, as with all other things in the world, it is not as straightforward as we might have hoped. In this presentation, we will walk through some of the common hurdles faced in defining life & health insurance risks, and how we might deal with the Ugly reality of subjectivity and complexity. The take will be from multiple angles – technical data science, actuarial concepts, business implications and fairness/ethics.

Speakers:

Charlene Lee possesses a unique mix of experience, having taken on multiple actuarial positions across insurance, reinsurance and consulting, and most recently as Senior Actuarial Data Scientist at Swiss Re, where she works towards advancing collaboration between the business, actuarial and data science domains to formulate effective, data-driven solutions. Charlene is a qualified actuary (FIA) from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, UK, and in pursuing her passion for bringing health to people, is currently working towards a Master of Public Health from Imperial College London.

Guan Wang works on Al applications and research for insurance industry in Swiss Re. He joined Swiss Re in January 2018 in Hong Kong before relocating to Singapore in March 2020. Prior to that he was staff researcher for Al labs in Lenovo and ASTRI. Guan is also an active tech blogger and community contributor, receiving 10000+ stars for his open source projects on Github.

Workshop Wed, 28/07/2021 - 14:00 - 15:00 Uncertainties Old and New: Inflation and Interest Rate Risk Modelling in a (Post?) COVID World

Covid has posed extraordinary challenges for global investors. These include exceptional volatility in economic conditions, unprecedented intervention by governments and central banks, and the prospect of low interest rates for even longer than previously expected in many economies. But a post-Covid world may present its own challenges. The legacy of monetary and fiscal intervention, together with spending to ‘build back better’ may exert upwards pressure on inflation and interest rates. This presentation will consider how consideration of both specific and stochastic scenarios can help in addressing the uncertainties and varying challenges faced by investors in different economies.

Speaker:

Nicholas Miller Smith is a research director at Moody’s Analytics. His focus is on the construction and calibration of financial models for use in stochastic economic scenario generators. Before that he worked at BlackRock, mainly in the area of research and advice on strategic asset allocation for institutional investors. He is a qualified actuary.

Workshop Wed, 28/07/2021 - 16:00 - 17:30 Sustainability Risks: Challenges and Opportunities

Free to attend.  Sponsored by:

Sustainability related risks are increasing in prominence around the world. I’ll talk about why actuaries need to think about them, how they are different from many of the other risks we deal with, and some of the challenges they pose and the opportunities they present.

Speaker:

Louise Pryor has had a varied career as an actuary, academic, software development manager and risk consultant. She has practised as an independent consultant in the areas of software risk and sustainability and has worked on financial modelling for social security and pensions reform in a number of emerging economies. Dr Pryor is Chair of the London Climate Change Partnership, a Director of the Ecology Building Society and an Honorary Professor at UCL’s Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction.

Ellen Yang, DWS Group, Head of Insurance, Asia and Pacific

Paul Sinnott, Milliman, Principal & Consulting Actuary

Workshop Thu, 29/07/2021 - 09:30 - 10:30 Together for a Greener Future
  • Raise the awareness of climate risk through global policy update and global climate action.
  • Update the UK government’s commitment on tackle climate change and what will happen in the next few years especially in insurance and pension sectors.
  • What does upcoming policy mean to the insurance and pension sectors, what are the challenges the world is facing.
  • Data analysis and quantification plays a fundamental role and critical for understanding the risks which are affecting the financial stability.
  • We mobilise all professional bodies to work together, actuaries are an essential l group we cannot leave out of this action.
  • Opportunities around how actuaries can play a role. (Appreciate Mrs. Yuan’s input )
  • How the UK PACT programme can assist this collaboration going forward.
  • Based on the current regulation, what actuaries have been doing to manage climate risks and sustainability development.
  • More areas that actuaries can work on to help with reducing climate risks and improving sustainability development, in job and out job.

Speaker:

Cynthia Yuan is the Director of Risk Management of China Re Group. She is responsible for risks associated with overseas business. She also oversees the construction of group ERM framework and C-ROSS compliant work, while maintaining the two rating grades of China Re Group. She is the first IFoA council member elected in China. She is also a council member of The Insurance Institute of China. Before joining China Re, Cynthia was the ERM team leader in Sagicor at Lloyds. She has over fifteen years of working experience, previously with Gen Re and Towers Watson.

Her research work in China includes assisting with the C-ROSS (Chinese Solvency II reformation) constitution, acting as chairman of various working parties regarding issues like correlation between risks, credit risks and reinsurance solvency regulation.

Her research work internationally includes acting as the Chairwoman of the inaugural IFoA Asia Conference, chairing the Economic Capital Modeling in Emerging Market Working Party at GIRO and publishing an article Imperial Measure in The Actuary Magazine (November 2013).

Rhys Gordon-Jones has been Counsellor for Financial and Professional Services since July 2020, but joined the British Embassy in June 2018 as First Secretary, Financial Policy. He is now responsible for all of the embassy’s financial and professional services functions, including its commercial relationships under the Department for International Trade, financial policy, the Financial Services Prosperity Fund and the UK PACT China Green Finance Programme. In his previous role he was responsible for the embassy’s relationships with China’s financial regulators and was the lead negotiator on financial services for the Economic and Financial Dialogue, and will continue to oversee these functions. Before moving to China Rhys worked at HM Treasury for five years, including roles as Head of Financial Services Trade and Investment and in ministerial private office. During this time he was HM Treasury’s representative on the G20 Green Finance Study Group and led HM Government’s green finance strategy. Prior to joining government Rhys worked for the UK’s financial services regulator.

Workshop Thu, 29/07/2021 - 11:00 - 12:00 Innovation in motor insurance in Asia market

As one of the largest product lines in general insurance, motor insurance is always evolving over time.  With real-life cases and research, we will present latest innovation in motor insurance in Asia market, including insurance product for electric vehicle and used based insurance (UBI). With these study cases, we will provide audience with an overview of latest development of innovation in motor insurance.

Speaker:

Dr. Ji Yao is a Director of EY’s Actuarial and Insurance Advisory Services with more than 16 years’ work experience in the UK and China. He was qualified as FIA in 2008 and has been a consultant since 2012, providing service to governments, insurers, reinsurers, insurance brokers and investors.  He has extensive experience in a wide range of actuarial areas as well as innovation in insurance. He got his PhD in Mathematics and Statistics from University of Birmingham, UK and has been a part-time lecturer in top actuarial universities in both the UK and China

Workshop Thu, 29/07/2021 - 14:00 - 15:00 Can We Manage Diabetes Risk for Healthier Outcomes?

We will present an overview of the aims and objectives of the Diabetes Working Party, and our progress so far. The insurance industry currently underwrites customers with diabetes based on a range of factors, medical expertise and various medical studies. The work undertaken by the Diabetes Working Party is aimed to help the industry to approach this using current research findings to update and enhance how potential risk from diabetes is considered. This includes the need to understand the underwriting implications as treatments improve, and potentially to develop new products that are tailored to those with diabetes. The Diabetes Working Party will present our latest findings in the management of this important chronic condition which will include an update on research in progress in collaboration with the IFoA/Actuarial Research Centre and the University of Leicester UK.

In addition, in order to understand how the global insurance industry currently underwrites applicants with diabetes, we have undertaken an international underwriting survey covering the following countries/regions: UK, mainland China and the wider Asian region. This is to help us gain further understanding, expertise and insights from many different perspectives, particularly from those at the forefront of underwriting, product design and pricing.

Speakers:

Nicola Oliver is the founder of Medical Intelligence, established in 2007, a consultancy dedicated to providing impartial expert insights into the main drivers behind changes in life expectancy and disease risk for the insurance industry. Clients include health insurers, income protection providers, actuaries, life insurance providers and annuity providers including impaired lives.
Nicola’s background includes a long career in the UK National Health Service, firstly in intensive care, and latterly in Public Health.

Scott Reid currently works for Zurich as Global Protection & Analytics Actuary.  This is a global role where he advises on the pricing and design of new life/health insurance products and data analytic capabilities.  

He is an active volunteer within the actuarial profession including a member of the IFoA Health & Care Board, Deputy Chair of the Diabetes Working Party and recently lead of a COVID-19 Action Taskforce Heath & Care workstream.

Workshop Thu, 29/07/2021 - 16:00 - 17:30 Adapting to a digital future – How can the actuarial profession thrive?

Free to attend

Join us for this interactive webinar and listen to an experienced, global panel of 4 insurance professionals present, discuss and answer your questions on the theme of “Adapting to a digital future – How can the actuarial profession thrive?”.

The 90 minute webinar will be structured into 4 themes with each theme being led by one of the panelists. Hugh Terry from The Digital Insurer will moderate the session.

Speakers:

Hugh Terry, the founder of The Digital Insurer, is an experienced insurance professional with more than 30 years’ experience in the insurance industry covering insurance companies, business consulting as well as successful set-up and exit from his own businesses. Hugh is an actuary by profession.

The Digital Insurer is the world’s largest knowledgebase and online community of more than 40,000 professionals who share a common purpose of working together to accelerate the digital transformation of insurance. The TDI Academy launched in 2020 is dedicated to providing best in class learning and development on digital insurance to help as many people as possible be part of our digital future.

Lee Sarkin (Munich Re) 

Lee Sarkin has over 16 years of experience in actuarial, AI / data analytics, research and consulting roles at primary insurers, reinsurers and independent consulting. As a regional Chief Analytics Officer, Lee heads the regional AI-analytics team, located in Singapore, covering the Life & Health Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa business of Munich Re. Lee’s team combines cutting edge AI/ML modelling with Munich Re’s deep domain knowledge and technology to develop AI-driven digital solutions that enhance insurers’ end customer experience and operational efficiency by transforming underwriting and claims processes. His Master’s degree, presented at the 2014 International Congress of Actuaries in Washington D.C., provided many South African insurers with the first credible South African research for underwriting HIV and applied advanced analytics methods to medical scheme and managed care data. Lee is now completing a PhD in AI and advanced analytics, is a member of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and the Actuarial Society of South African where he chairs its Demography & Epidemiology committee.

Yannick Even (Swiss Re) 

As a Global Analytics Business Partner, Yannick is coordinating the global advanced analytics strategy and project portfolio for the Swiss Re Institute & IptiQ business units for the Swiss Re Group. He is as well the APAC coordinator of the Group Data Strategy and oversee the delivery of the AI and data projects across APAC through the 2 chapters of data scientists delivering AI based solutions, research, partnerships and thought leadership.

Yannick has over 15 years of experience delivering analytics and tech-enabled solutions worldwide and been based in Hong Kong since 2010. He is an alumni of the Indian School of Business and Polytech Montpellier France and is a Subject Matter Experts delivering 2 AI modules and 1 workshop to each of the TDI ADI batches since the launch of the academy programme and has also always been the MC of the TDI Insurtech Award of the year.

 

Shir Lynn Ong (Milliman) 

Shir Lynn has over 10 years of experience in the life insurance industry and is a Consulting Actuary with Milliman Singapore.  In her role, she has worked on various projects in the South East Asian region including performing appraisal value calculations for the purpose of mergers and acquisitions, providing support in assessing feasibility of matching adjustments for participating funds and providing support on appointed actuary assignments including product pricing and regular reporting.  Shir Lynn graduated from Macquarie University and is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.  

Kate Chen (Lockton International APAC Reinsurance)

Kate is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries. and now works for Lockton International APAC Reinsurance as Head of Actuarial. She has provided risk analytics services to Captive Insurance clients, multinational and conglomerate corporations and pricing works in both direct and reinsurance markets. Kate has also worked on structured reinsurance solutions for helping (re)insurance companies optimise capital efficiency, mitigate earnings’ volatilities and regulatory changes.

In quantitative risk management experience of both insurance and reinsurance companies, Kate has built economic capital models for clients as a consultant and as a risk actuary operating the model in the insurance company. 

Workshop Fri, 30/07/2021 - 11:00 - 12:00 Recognition of P&C Reinsurance Structures on your IFRS17 Accounts

This presentation will:

  • Show how reinsurance is recognized under IFRS17 and the underlying questions with regards to accounting for structural elements and the approach selected for accounting (PAA or GMM). For this, the presenter will provide simple to more complicated reinsurance structures. E.g. Quota share, surplus, XoL, multi-year treaties and multi-line ones, and finally loss portfolio transfer
  • Discuss the operational challenges relative to reinsurance in the IFRS17 environment: The economic impact of protection, the impact on the accounts, and the limits to changing reinsurance features to ease the accounting; for this, the presenters will be using specific examples and case studies
  • Finally, acknowledging that insurers are not used to model their ceded business (especially risks ceded on non-proportional basis in higher layers), the presenter will share a few points of attention for estimating the expected recoveries through some examples.

Speaker:

Valerie Gilles-Coeur leads the Singapore Business Development team in Swiss Re since 2014, covering General Insurance for Asia excluding China and Japan. Based in Singapore, she is responsible for helping clients use reinsurance to improve their technical efficiency and financial soundness, more recently expending this to understanding the recognition of reinsurance under IFRS17.

Valerie has extensive experience in the Property and Casualty (P&C) direct and reinsurance business. Prior to joining Swiss Re, she was a regional actuary with ERGO Asia, where she supported subsidiaries on motor pricing, claims reserving and capital modelling. Before that, she was with AXA for 15 years. There she headed the process for assessing the value of its P&C business, approving new products, and headed the Research & Development team to build up components of the internal capital model at AXA.

Valerie is a qualified actuary and holds a Master of Business Administration from INSEAD

Workshop Fri, 30/07/2021 - 14:00 - 15:00 Adapting to Our New World, Innovating Distribution and Changing Customer Engagement during COVID and beyond

COVID-19 has touched all our lives and many businesses have been negatively impacted, but how can we adapt to this new world and thrive together? 

During this presentation we’ll provide details of the innovations in the markets around Asia over the last 12-18 months as distribution and customer engagement has adapted, not only to utilise the new technologies that are available, but also to ensure that businesses can continue to engage with their customers and meet their needs during this time of increased uncertainty and beyond.

While technology and the development of ecosystems play a key role, there are wider business considerations.  Our businesses also need to consider other stakeholder’s impacts including regulation, changing customer needs and in managing the risks posed by the COVID pandemic in the short and long-term.  Actuaries have their part to play in this at all levels, especially in areas of product design and pricing and advanced analytics such as propensity modelling and we’ll touch on some of the areas that have been key for us in 2020/21.

Speakers:

Trista Sun is currently leading HSBC’s digital-banking push in China through a venture known as HSBC Pinnacle.  Having worked for HSBC in both London and Hong Kong, she’s now moved to Mainland China where her team of around 3,000 branchless bankers search prosperous coastal cities for wealthy clients who need advice on insurance and investments.

The Wall Street Journal has recently described Trista as a “Chinese banker with the enthusiasm of a financial-technology entrepreneur” and as part of her role she’s recently set up a financial technology platform (fintech) to support the venture.

Alex Wong is HSBC’s Asia Chief Actuary and President-elect of the Actuarial Society of Hong Kong (ASHK) with experience in life insurance across Hong Kong, Taiwan and the United States.  In his current role he oversees the actuarial work of HSBC’s insurance businesses across Asia and manages HSBC’s Global Actuarial Centre of Excellence which supports the Group’s modelling initiatives together with a variety of projects.

Outside of work Alex is heavily involved in the ASHK and is their President-elect.  He’s involved in the HK implementation of Risk Based Capital (RBC) and IFRS 17 among others.

Workshop Fri, 30/07/2021 - 16:00 - 17:30 Lessons from History - In the context of Contemporary Actuarial Questions

Free to attend

Craig will draw upon content from this book, A History of British Actuarial Thought, and his articles on actuarial methodology to deliver an analysis of some contemporary actuarial topics. The talk will provide a historical perspective on the development of actuarial methods in areas such as asset risk reserving and the profession's use of finance theory to provide some context around currently topical questions. In particular, in recent years leading thinkers from both inside and outside the profession have highlighted that actuaries work in a world dominated by the presence of radical (i.e. Knightian) uncertainty. How can actuaries make best use of models in a world dominated by radical uncertainty? And does its prevalence render theory useless?

Speaker:

Craig Turnbull, Senior Technical Specialist, Bank of England

Craig is a Senior Technical Specialist at the Bank of England. He has held senior positions in consulting, software and asset management businesses, and was formerly a Managing Director at Moody’s Analytics. He qualified as a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in 2003. He was the 2013 recipient of the IFoA’s Peter Clark Research Prize and is the author of the book A History of British Actuarial Thought, which was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2017.

Haijing Wang, HSBC Life China, Chief Investment Officer

Khoo Kah Siang, Manulife Singapore, CEO