The Actuarial Standards Board (ASB) of the American Academy of Actuaries (AAA) recently announced the release of the new Actuarial Standard of Practice (ASOP) 56, entitled “Modeling.” This new standard will be applicable to actuaries governed by the AAA for modeling work performed on or after October 1, 2020.

In The State of Insurance Fraud Technology (2019), the most recent report published by the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud (CAIF) and the SAS Institute, nearly 75% of survey participants experienced a rise in fraudulent claims in the past three years. This represents a disturbing 11% increase since 2014. The survey was based on 84 primarily property and casualty insurers. None of the participating insurers indicated that fraud had decreased significantly during the same time frame. As a consequence of the rise in fraudulent claims, insurers are moving away from traditional formulaic business rules and red flags for identifying fraud. Instead, insurers are enriching their data analytics arsenals to include more sophisticated tools, methods and means to investigate fraud.  

At Pinnacle, giving back is a centerpiece of our culture. In fact, community involvement is one of our core values as an organization. During the year, our employees give to and volunteer at all kinds of charitable organizations, from Wounded Warrior and St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital to local churches, schools and food pantries. We’re proud of everything our people do, both for our clients and in making our communities (and the world) a better place. We truly have great people at Pinnacle.

We are finishing our 17^th year as Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, although we’ve played a major role in the profession much longer with our predecessor organizations. In fact, eight of our actuarial professionals worked together for more than 20 years, and have made countless material contributions to the growth and success of Pinnacle’s clients and our profession.

In 2018, the NCAA introduced a new tool to help evaluate and select teams for its annual NCAA tournament, March Madness. The NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) and metric was designed as a way to rank NCAA basketball teams using various criteria such as strength of schedule and quality of wins or losses (akin to rating variables). It replaced the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) that the NCAA had used for almost 40 years.