International engagement - a pilot initiative for Asia

From an international perspective there is an incredible amount of change that will serve to keep GI actuaries around the world busy – for example driven by the rapid development of emerging insurance markets, technological change through data analytics and telematics, significant development of global, regional and local regulation, and the series of weather-related events in recent years.  The effects of these changes are felt locally in our day-to-day work, but in many cases the ‘actuarial issue’ is commonly shared across international borders.

Take the onset of enhanced risk and capital regimes, emerging flood risk, or good old fashioned reserving or pricing methodologies – the issue might be defined locally but actuaries everywhere are facing similar challenges that need to be overcome.

Research is in many ways the life-blood of our international GI actuarial community.  In the recognition of common issues impacting actuaries across borders, we will soon be launching a regional IFoA working party initiative.  The pilot initiative will be aimed at the Asian region – i.e. to establish a working party that is intended to be run by actuaries in the Asian region, to better support members who are based in or near the region.

Depending on the success of this pilot, we hope to be able to establish similar working parties in other international locations, and at the very least work towards enhancing greater connection between the IFoA’s GI working parties with the issues and topics that impact your day-to-day professional lives, wherever you work in the world.  This initiative is just one of the ways in which the IFoA is seeking to enhance member support.

We will shortly announce a call for volunteers for the Asia working party; in the meantime we encourage you to express your interest to practice.executive@actuaries.org.uk , and to suggest topics that the working party could seek to cover.