I’ve been known to frequent Europe on a regular basis and even have an app on my phone that tracks the places I’ve visited. I enjoy seeing the world’s major cities and indulging in the regional cuisine. A very popular Polish dish is the pierogi – a dumpling filled with a variety of vegetables or meat. You can even fill one with blueberries for dessert.

When college students, regardless of their chosen major, ask for advice on how to cope with the changing job market, “Communication skills are critical,” is what they’ll hear.  We can perform complex regressions on personal computers and use presentation software to create slides, or we can build software programs designed to take an actuarial loss triangle and, with the press of a button, create a set of loss development exhibits… but someone has to explain all of this.

The strategic plan of the Casualty Actuarial Society includes a directive to “Develop strong relationships with academics and increase awareness among academics of the CAS career path.” Recognizing there are currently just over 3,000 four-year degree-granting institutions in the United States, a question arises as to how far this outreach extends. With this in mind, I’ve gone back to my roots and visited the two academic institutions that have most impacted my life.

More than 30 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have enacted captive laws, and others are exploring the idea. As the list of captive domiciles expands, so does the variability in the captive regulatory environment. Understanding the key regulatory differences is an important consideration in choosing (or changing) a captive domicile.

This past January, Pinnacle presented an Apex webinar on the “Statements of Actuarial Opinion – Year End 2014” which discussed considerations when creating or reviewing a Statement of Actuarial Opinion (SAO) focusing on changes in the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) guidance memo. Feedback from this presentation indicated that future discussions of the Risk of Material Adverse Deviation (RMAD) section of the SAO, as well as how to interpret the role of the Chief Risk Officer (CRO) in assessing a company’s risk profile may be useful expansions of this general topic.