A few years ago, as South African life insurers were experiencing sharp spikes in lapse rates as a result of the GFC, some analysts and actuaries raised concerns about the impact of selective lapsation on mortality experience. The principle is sound: Policyholders who know their health is very poor are less likely to lapse than…
An actuary I know once made me cringe by saying “It doesn’t matter how an Economic Scenario Generator is constructed, if it meets all the calibration tests then it’s fine. A machine learning black box is as good as any other model with the same scores.† The idea being that if the model outputs correctly…
I don’t know if this is a function of ubiquitous IP geolocation or some metaphysical reward for travel, but I’ve been discussing some unfamiliar music and artists in multiple ways during this trip. I know some of you will be amused at me “discovering” these artists only now. Moneybox, a Slate blog I still read…
The US, despite its nascent recovery, is learning some hard lessons about the differences between short-term unemployment and long-term unemployment. South Africa should have some lessons to teach here. We have enough experience to expect some insights. Sadly, I’m not sure we’ve done much except become accustomed to it. Long-term unemployed – one definition is…
Brief personal note. I’m off to the Milliman Life Consultants Forum in the US this week. Looks like an amazing programme covering ORSAs, Solvency II vs EV reporting and many of their software tools. Great to have such a relevant programme to me and for us in South Africa. I’m writing a blog post on…
Michael Lewis, of Liar’s Poker and The Big Short fame, has written a book on the world of High Frequency Trading. The booked is called Flash Boys and it’s more or less as entertaining has Lewis’s recent books. Â That’s a good thing, even if it doesn’t quite reach the highs of Liar’s Poker (which you…
Jeffrey Robinson, the author of the well known book “Laundrymen” that I’m now reading, has written an engaging story about The Satoshi Faithful (as he calls them) supporters of Bitcoin and where their Faith is leading them stray. The book is called BitCon: The Naked Truth About Bitcoin and it doesn’t pull punches in deriding the…
Pretty far from a normal topic for this blog, but at least it relates to money. Norway has new banknotes or at least they will be 2017. Standard on one side and abstract, competition winning pixelated art on the other. Feels appropriately Scandinavian to me.
