The Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) is proud to be a continuing supporter of the Travelers Annual Actuarial Case Competition. Since 2014, the CAS has participated as an event sponsor, providing P&C career resources and information to student competitors and their accompanying professors, and contributing a portion of the prize money awarded to the winning teams. This year, the CAS was given the unique opportunity to participate in a new way, by entering its own team to compete in the virtual event.
In a typical year, teams of college undergraduates are brought to the main Travelers campuses in Hartford, Connecticut, and St. Paul, Minnesota, to compete in person. The teams are tasked with researching and developing a solution to an actuarial business problem, which they then present to a panel of judges made up of Travelers actuarial and analytics business leaders. Because of the pandemic, the event was changed to a virtual format, which gave Travelers the opportunity to invite additional universities and partner organizations like the CAS, the Organization of Latino Actuaries (OLA) and the International Association of Black Actuaries (IABA).
Freshmen and sophomore actuarial science students from six different universities comprised Team CAS: Jennah Grant, Brigham Young University; Alison Hansen, Arizona State University; Nevin Kara (they/them), Pennsylvania State University; Tanmay Karandikar, University of Texas at Dallas; Thomas Moler, University of Texas at Austin; and Tanner O’Grady, Middle Tennessee State University.
During the day-long event, participants were given a dataset for a fictitious auto insurance agency and were asked to present a reasonable estimate for reserves while considering extra losses resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The team spent 4.5 hours working on the case and then presented to the judges. After the presentations, the judges named Team CAS the winner in their division, earning them a cash prize of $1,000 that the CAS will match for a grand total of $2,000.
“The day of the competition was incredibly intense,” said Team CAS member Tanmay Karandikar. “Working together as a team to ensure that everyone was operating on the same page and understood the purpose of what we were doing helped us find success in the competition,” he said.
Congratulations to the other division winners, University of St. Thomas and Worcester Polytechnic Institute!
The CAS sincerely thanks Travelers for the invitation to this exciting event and applauds the outstanding students who, without ever meeting in person, worked as teams and demonstrated astute actuarial capabilities.
Want to Hold Your Own Case Competition?
The CAS has developed a series of five case competition toolkits on the topics of predictive modeling, data visualization, workers’ compensation reserving, auto safety features and warranties. Each toolkit offers a full set of materials to run the competition including a case study, introductory presentation, data workbook and templates, including rubric and grading sheets for judges and award certificates. For more information, please contact CAS University Engagement Manager Margaret Kerr at mkerr@casact.org.
