Latest Posts
How many first born children are there?
This video from Harvard philosopher Professor Michael Sandel talks about Justice. What is a fair start in life? How should you think about fairness? He asks his students about their start at Harvard. How did they get there? Was it privilege or hard work? After most of them agree theyContinue Reading
APRA releases draft illiquidity premium proposal
Warning: technical actuarial post ahead! This is a guest post from my colleague, Michael Dermody. On Friday, APRA issued a letter to all CEOs and Appointed Actuaries of life insurers detailed its proposal for calculating the illiquidity premium in the discount rate for certain liabilities as part of the Life InsuranceContinue Reading
Are people living longer? Yes, but some ages are better than others
Late last year, as in every year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced that life expectancy at birth continues to improve. Based on current mortality rates, a boy born in 2008-2010 can expect to live 79.5 years, while a girl can expect to live 84 years. This is an improvementContinue Reading
Are Appointed Actuaries moving to a compliance role?
Most financial services companies these days have a risk management framework with three lines of defence. The diagram below shows the three lines of defence, as illustrated by a bank. So where does the Appointed Actuary fit into this picture? The original Appointed Actuary in the UK was effectively solelyContinue Reading
How many missing women are there really?
Last year I read a fascinating book, Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, by Mara Hvistendahl. She talks about the issue of missing women, how demographically, there should be more women than there are in many different countries of the world. TheContinue Reading
ICAAP – The new risk and capital management framework
Regulatory change is a constant in most financial services areas these days. Insurance in Australia is no different. APRA is in the middle of a major upgrade to the regulatory capital regime for life and general insurers, which is due to start from 1 January 2013. So far, most ofContinue Reading
The cost of living longer
This article, from the US smart money magazine, is a fascinating look at the latest thinking on how long we are likely to live. You really should read it in full. It looks at the latest thinking on longevity, and what that means for retirement planning. Some US life insurersContinue Reading
Book Review: Drive, the Surprising Truth about what motivates us, by Daniel H Pink
Today’s book review is Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel Pink. For a quick summary of the thesis, his Ted Talk is a good start, with the bonus that it will only take 20 minutes to watch. And this is a fairly slight book. But the thesis isContinue Reading
Is Australia’s fertility declining?
Last month, the annual fertility rates were released by the ABS. I last did a post on this two years ago, so it is time for an update. My broad conclusion was that fertility rates are pretty stable in Australia, with the very important caveat that that stability is in theContinue Reading
Women on Boards – should there be quotas?
Currently on our travels, I’m in Norway, and Norway, in the 21st century, is proud of its position as one of the most equal countries (by gender roles) in the world. Statistics Norway has a special gender equality index, and 40% of the parliament (the Storting) is female. Norway has goneContinue Reading