Michaël Bordeleau-Tassile, FCAS, has created the winning app for the 2023 Hacktuary Challenge, which is beneficial to consumers and insurers. It’s the second win for Bordeleau-Tassile, who was named the co-winner of the first Hacktuary contest in 2022 along with Caesar Balona. (See AR Web Exclusives for the story and videos about last year’s winners https://ar.casact.org/hacktuary-winners-build-novel-apps-with-actuarial-know-how/.)
His app, PropertInsight (https://propertinsight.shinyapps.io/launch/), gives at-a-glance overviews of property characteristics and hazards and helpful insights for consumers.
Insurers can also benefit from the catalog of insurance-related open data sets that can be used to improve risk assessments, identify new opportunities and deploy advanced analytics.
Showcasing Montréal, Canada, as its use location, the app displays property risk factors ranging from environmental and climate characteristics to proximity to fire stations. Factors of special interest to actuaries cover a property’s age and value along with nearby road conditions and closeness to businesses including drinking establishments.
“The entry is a standout illustration of how actuaries can apply technology to demonstrate risk potential to better inform consumers,” said Morgan Bugbee, vice president of research for the CAS. The CAS awarded Bordeleau-Tassile $15,000 for his winning submission.
The CAS began its Hacktuary Contest in 2022 to showcase the actuarial and technical skills necessary for developing novel risk engineering solutions. Entrants are challenged to create actuarially grounded end-user applications that offer consumer-relevant risk management solutions.
Winners are also required to post the app’s code on the publicly available CAS GitHub site, a cloud-based, public platform for collaborative code development. The code for PropertInsight is located at https://github.com/ResearchActuary/PropertInsight. (GitHub code encompasses more than just software. By writing in a format like RMarkdown, users can also share research papers, and other human-readable items.)
Plans for the 2024 Hacktuary Contest are coming soon. For questions regarding the Hacktuary Challenge or GitHub at the CAS, please write Research Manager Annmarie Baribeau at abaribeau@casact.org.
