In November 1989 President Michael Fusco wrote a Random Sampler titled “The Next Twenty-Five Years.” Wow! What a perfect title he selected to be remembered in this column! Mike kindly agreed to self-grade his 25-year-old predictions, and his critique follows. (His original forecast can be found at http://www.casact.org/pubs/actrev/historic/nov89.pdf).
Thanks, Walt, for the opportunity to score my predictions. I will report using the same categories I started with 25 years ago.
Membership
I forecast a very high growth in number of members (the actual growth was over 300% in the ensuing 25 years) and that the FCAS/ACAS split would shift to more Fellows (it went from 60/40 to 70/30). I also forecast that CAS members would propagate more CAS members — and we have witnessed several father-son, father-daughter and mother-son pairs. I had predicted a mother-daughter FCAS team, and we do have a mother (FCAS)-daughter (FCAS) pair, so please give me credit on that one!
Demand
I forecast a higher than average growth percentage in “Consultants” and “Other” by type of employment; as it happens, we are greatly expanding our employment footprint in “Brokers” and “Reinsurance.” This in turn fueled the pinpoint accuracy of my prediction of geographic movement outside the U.S. We see dramatic quarter-centennial growth of the CAS, with our Regional Affiliates being established in Canada (two there), Bermuda, Europe and the Far East!
Image
I said that for actuaries to really improve our public image we needed to have a TV show, and speculated that maybe someday Hartford Actuary would replace LA Law. That has not materialized. But go see the recent epic movie, Boyhood, and spot the actuary there! I expressed the hope that our members would become better golfers, but, boo hoo, we no longer even fill up a golf tournament at CAS meetings! But I was right in predicting more disciplinary actions — we had one CAS expulsion and a few other public disciplinary actions. It is good for the profession that we are policing ourselves.
CAS Structure
I made an accurate forecast that there would be at least five female CAS presidents in the 25-year period; there were six (see how quickly you can name them!). But I did write, “There will be no takeover attempts and no mergers” of actuarial societies. I was close on no takeover attempts (made it through about 23 of the 25 years), and I still hope I am right on no mergers. Time will tell.
All in all, the Amazing Kreskin has little to fear, but it sure was fun to look back. Bob Miccolis, it’s your turn to look ahead!
Walter Wright, FCAS, is a former AR Editor in Chief. He retired as a principal for Oliver Wyman in 2008.
