The on-demand culture has been rapidly growing over the past decade. Groceries, car rides and dinners can all be purchased and promptly delivered with the touch of a button and insurance is catching up. At the 2019 Pinnacle U event, we presented on the topic of on-demand insurance and what its future may hold. We partnered with Noah Sierer, an Illinois State University student, to provide examples of current insurers and the market’s potential.

When it comes to advanced analytics such as building predictive models, many people immediately think about the vast amounts of data, computing horsepower needed, and very sophisticated (often mysterious) techniques applied to the data to produce the results. Without question, all of these aspects are important steps in the process. However, there are several other critical steps both before and after these that can truly make or break an advanced analytics project. We can think of this as the Modeling Lifecycle.

During the recent Pinnacle University event, I discussed the growing challenges of the cybersecurity industry in today’s evolving technological world. The importance of advanced measures and practices and how actuarial modeling techniques can be applied to the cybersecurity industry were also discussed. 

Pinnacle University is an annual event hosted by Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, Inc., where analysts and actuarial science students from various universities collaborate to research and present on a relevant topic in the insurance industry. This year, our group explored how universities obtain insurance.

The 2018 news cycle was flooded with disturbing images of roaring fires in California. These wildfires were cataclysmic in scale and severity. Even more concerning is that the 2018 severe wildfire season was preceded by an awful 2017 season, which was the worst in recorded history until it was outdone by 2018. These events are troublesome and seem to be increasing in frequency. How can we in the risk management industry account for these seemingly worsening risks?