As I was reading Dave Clark’s clever article in the Actuarial Expertise department, “Formula for Forgetting,” I reflected a bit on two extreme cases he presents: one where the recent past is more predictive of the future than the more distant past, and the other where reality remains relatively stable over time. Which one rings truer for actuaries? This question was a hot topic at the 2024 CAS Annual Meeting (which our writers cover extensively this issue) and provides a throughline for readers of this AR: our first of 2025.
The Annual Meeting gathered hundreds of new Fellows and Associates (who we recognize in this issue) in Phoenix, Arizona, and also welcomed a new CAS president. In his first AR President’s Message, Dave Cummings reminds readers of the CAS’s distinctive and unique position in the risk ecosystem. Actuaries rightfully have held these truths to be self-evident since 1914, but Cummings also highlights imperatives to further strengthen the CAS community and to pursue the CAS Board’s new Strategic Plan, which CAS Editorial/Production Manager Sarah Sapp provides a tour of in Member News. Readers will likely observe that the plan balances evolving skills and expanding markets with leveraging expertise and promoting brand. This tradeoff is also at the heart of a story Yuhan Zhao, Sandra Maria Nawar and I put together, which examines the relative fortunes of actuaries and data scientists versus predictions made a decade ago. Which profession is presently disestablishing and which is institutionalizing?
For a hint at the answer, check out Sandra’s and Yuhan’s separate Annual Meeting coverage on medical malpractice and property catastrophe pricing, as well as AR News Editor Sara Chen’s coverage of how artificial intelligence is shaking up reserving. Readers also must not miss Dale Porfilio’s coverage of the most electrifying comment from the meeting (which some may even find … shocking). Ample evidence is presented that “the way we’ve always done it” is not always the best or only way.
There is a fine line between obsolescence and timelessness. Rob Kahn’s comparison of the past few years of California wildfire experience to the decades that preceded them leads him to a great question: “Is this a fluke or has something fundamental changed?” That is the question actuaries must make peace with every day. We hope AR provides a useful traveling companion on your journey.
