Latest Posts
Worth reading in 2012
I’ve just put up a page of most of the non fiction I read in 2012 – you can check it out here.Continue Reading
Why do pedestrians jaywalk… and motorists obey the rules?
Wandering around Sydney’s CBD, as I do on a daily basis, you will always find pedestrians completely ignoring road rules. They cross the road against the traffic lights, or when there are no lights at all. They will walk around barriers designed to force them to cross at the lights,Continue Reading
Actuaries in Song
Recently a colleague overhead me explaining what I did to a waiter in a restaurant. She told me I should have pointed him to this youtube clip: What is an Actuary? Not sure if I entirely agree that an actuary takes your risk away, but it’s not a bad start.Continue Reading
Mortality – has the improvement died down?
Mortality has been improving in Australia (and indeed most of the world) for a long time. As my dad found out recently, the life expectancy at birth for a boy born in Australia has improved from 63 when he was born, to 79.7 years now. But there is considerable debateContinue Reading
Plague Inc… the game for actuaries
So far I haven’t managed to kill the entire world population… but I’m getting there. Plague Inc is a strategy game in which you “must bring about the end of human history by evolving a deadly, global Plague whilst adapting against everything humanity can do to defend itself.” It’s aContinue Reading
Election statistics – those Australians in the vanguard again
You may have noticed that the US had an election this week. If you have any interest in statistics, you may also have noticed an election blogger at the NY Times called Nate Silver. The Economist summarises the story: The 2012 presidential election went exactly as predicted by the leading quantitative analysts.Continue Reading
Don’t be a bystander
This week I was lucky enough to attend the launch of UN Women’s Spring Campaign: Don’t be a Bystander: Say No to Violence against Women. As befits an actuarial blog, here are some statistics from the 2005 Australian Physical Safety Survey: since the age of 15, two percent of women andContinue Reading
The Appointed Actuary and ICAAP
In a previous post, I wondered whether Appointed Actuaries were moving into a compliance role, partly driven by the new ICAAP requirements from APRA for insurance companies. Well I’m not the only one who has been thinking about the role of Appointed Actuaries. We had a session at the ActuariesContinue Reading
What does Stronger Super mean for the Insurance market?
The Stronger Super reforms are the biggest change to superannuation in Australia since the introduction of the superannuation guarantee 20 years ago. The changes are aimed at improving the integrity of the superannuation system, and to provide a better deal for super members who do not manage their own funds.Continue Reading
Stay at home dads – are they taking over on the home front?
This week there was an article in the NY Times (in the fashion and style section, but that’s another story) asking whether Dads are taking over on the home front. It was prompted by some census statistics that there are now 176,000 dads in the US who have left the workforceContinue Reading