CAA – CAA Editor's Desk

Weekly COVID-19 Update – January 22

Dear Colleagues

This was an historic week as we saw the Inauguration of the 46^th President of the USA and the first woman and person of colour as the Vice President.

Immediately, they have implemented strict COVID-19 guidelines and restrictions. With new strains and increasing infections, we expect significant changes especially as some major cities worldwide has entered Tier 4 lockdown. Notably, Toronto and London have serious fines for breaches of the Tier 4 lockdown measures.

Weekend review:

Conference 2020 – recorded sessions on actuview. Here are two presentations from recent UWI graduates which were not included among our live sessions:

Weekend reads:

We end the week’s suggested reading with two articles from the Guardian (UK) which have nothing at all to do with the coronavirus or actuarial matters but which might nevertheless be of interest:

Remember to share any articles of interest and continue to provide feedback.

Please visit our website, Facebook page and LinkedIn page.

Stay safe and happy.

Your News Team: Shubhash, Betty, Pedro and Brian

The information on this page does not necessarily reflect the opinions, standards or policies of the CAA. Data included in graphs has been obtained from several sources the accuracy of which cannot be guaranteed by the CAA. The CAA assumes no responsibility or liability for the accuracy or completeness of content contained in any linked site.

Weekly News Update – 19 January

Hello Everyone,

Likely the greatest problem facing the world today is Climate Change. Some experts are even of the opinion that it was the abuse of our environment that caused the spread of COVID-19 from animals to humans. As actuaries, this is one of our major concerns. Environmental degradation leads to a myriad of problems which we must address.

Climate Change led the programme at our Annual Conference last December:

Our Keynote Session was a Round Table Discussion led by the Hon. Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados:

Achieving a Greener, Smarter, Fairer Recovery and Resilience – Moving from Talk to Action. Other participants were Ekhosuehi Iyahen – Secretary General, Insurance Development Forum; Daniel Clarke – Director, Centre for Disaster Protection; Marla Dukharan – Chief Economist, Bitt Inc.; Racquel Moses – CEO, Caribbean Climate-Smart Accelerator; Sam Gutterman – Past Vice Chair of the IAA Resource & Environment Working Group

Also included at our Conference were:

Measuring Climate Change with the Actuaries Climate Indices: the ACI & ACRI – Past, Present and Future – Steve Kolk (CAS)
Managing Climate Risk – Louise Pryor (IFoA)

Remember, ALL sessions from our Conference are available at actuview!

Here are a few more actuarial articles of interest:

Climate Change Reading List from the IFoA
Climate Change Blog of the Actuaries Institute Australia
Climate change and Risk Management – what should actuaries do? from Actuarial Eye
IAA submitted comments on the IAIS Draft Application Paper on the Supervision of Climate-related Risks in the Insurance Sector

And a few other positives:

Political leaders participating in the United Nations Summit on Biodiversity in September 2020, representing 83 countries, have committed to reversing biodiversity loss by 2030. Leaders’ Pledge for Nature
As part of the Sustainable Markets Initiative, HRH The Prince of Wales, announces the ‘Terra Carta’ – a charter that puts sustainability at the heart of the private sector.
Amid 2020’s gloom, there are reasons to be hopeful about the climate in 2021 from the Guardian Opinion.

Upcoming Actuarial Events:

Central Bank of Trinidad & Tobago: The New Insurance Act and You – 26^th January
IAA Events
SOA Events
IFoA Events
CIA Events
CAS Events

Please visit our website, Facebook page and LinkedIn page.

Stay safe and be happy,

Your News Team: Shubhash, Betty, Pedro and Brian

The views expressed above are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, standards or policies of the CAA. The CAA assumes no responsibility or liability for the accuracy or completeness of content contained in any linked site.

COVID-19 Update – January 15

Dear Colleagues,

CAA Weekly Update – January 13

It is unlikely that there is even one person out there who is not incredibly happy to see the last of 2020. With several vaccines being rolled out, we are all anxious to get back to normal. Let’s think about a new normal.

By the end of 2020 a microscopic virus had infected 85,000,000 people, killing almost 2,000,000 worldwide. It was almost as if the world stopped turning. Businesses closed, many forever, and countless millions fell into unemployment, homelessness and near starvation. Untold numbers suffered depression and other mental illness. Social media was awash with fake news and conspiracy theories; some even spread by egomaniacal or clueless world leaders to further their own agendas. Wildfires in the US and Australia burned at unprecedented levels and even Siberia burned. We saw that inherent racism was still thriving; the mindsets of many hadn’t changed much since the 1950s. in many areas we became so overwhelmed with negativity that we failed to see the positive. And there was some, more than we might have realised.

Because of lockdowns many public agencies and others finally updated their online facilities. Think how much time (and stress) we now save by paying taxes, etc. online rather than in line.

Families reconnected instead of just passing each other at the front door. Children learned more about their parents and parents about their children, all while gaining a new respect for teachers. In our solitude, many of us picked up the phone, or otherwise reached out, to family and friends and had real conversations. A big change from just liking their posts on social media. Some of us even rediscovered old hobbies or found new ones, something time had not allowed for years.

We learned to appreciate, not just medical personnel, but some of those so often ignored. Cleaners, supermarket staff, delivery drivers. In 2020 delivery drivers and riders became indispensable; they all braved, out of necessity, what the rest of us hid from.

Those of us who managed to stay safe avoided, not just COVID, but flu, colds, all those other viruses that plague us every year.

Here’s a list of The virus-free scientific breakthroughs of 2020, chosen by scientists from the UK Guardian’s Science section.

We saw pictures of clean air in Mumbai and clean canals in Venice and our minds turned to Climate Change and cleaning our environment, a serious concern of most of us.

The philanthropic-minded gave even more than usual and some who had never given a cent in their lives were feeding hospital workers and the homeless. A kind-hearted friend of the author, who has always fed the homeless, decided one day to prepare a dozen meals and take for the staff of a COVID designated hospital. Within a month others joined her and soon COVID carers at two of Kingston’s public hospitals were getting gourmet lunches every day.

And let’s not forget, close to us, the overwhelming success of our first Virtual Annual Conference which had 650 attendees from virtually everywhere (except Antarctica)! Here’s a session that may inspire you to become one of those Actuaries Giving Back.

And to put us into an even more positive mind frame, what better than to start 2021 with a look at Australia’s amazing fireworks?

Actuarial News

IAA Releases a Paper on Pension Fund Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Risk Disclosures: Developing Global Practice: Paper; Webinar
IAA Seminar Mini-Series: Risk-Based Financial Management and Supervision
IAA The Data Science Survey results – Expectations and Insights from Actuaries

COVID-19 Update – January 8

Dear Colleagues,

All the best for 2021 and onward!

This is our first COVID-19 update for 2021. Since the last update we have seen increases in the average daily number of cases, the approval of several vaccines and the identification of new strains of COVID-19. Many countries have initiated further restrictions to slow the spread of the virus. In countries with the vaccine, front line workers and those at high risk are being administered the vaccine. While vaccines may start arriving in the Caribbean in Q2 these will most likely only be adequate for high-risk groups and the rest of us will have to wait much longer.

Most countries walk a fine line between saving lives and saving the economy. Bloomberg publishes an informative chart, updated monthly, which attempts to show which countries have most successfully balanced both. New Zealand, fresh from battling a volcano and a monstrous hate crime, then battled COVID with better success than most. Bloomberg’s chart shows only major countries. Would anyone like to try a similar analysis for the Caribbean?

We can all learn from past mistakes. This article from the New Yorker tries to analyse what the USA did wrong in the early days of the pandemic.

As with most, if not all, organisations, our 2020 Annual Conference was virtual. We encourage you to access our conference presentations on Actuview. All members have been provided access codes. Each week, we will recommend viewing of one session which was presented live and one which was pre-recorded. We start with IFRS-17 Implementation Challenges for the Caribbean and Mental Health in a Time of COVID-19. Most sessions qualify for cpd credits.

Feedback is welcomed. We encourage continuing conversation and will provide the necessary fora for discussions i.e., between presenters and interested parties.

Please visit our website, Facebook page and LinkedIn page.

Thank you. Stay safe and happy.

Your Communication Committee:

Shubhash Gosine, Betty Black, Pedro Medford and Brian Blake

COVID-19 Update – December 18

Season Greetings to our Members, Colleagues and Friends.

This is our last update for 2020. We will resume posting on the 5^th of January 2021 with the next COVID-19 update on the 8^th of January. We look forward to continuing our meaningful rapport in 2021.

We encourage you to access our conference presentations on actuview. Please send us your comments, especially on the pre-recorded sessions.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Our festive season is going to be very different than what we are accustomed too. We will still enjoy time with our loved ones though this year some get-togethers will be by Zoom.

Please visit our website, Facebook page and LinkedIn page.

Thank you. Stay safe and happy.

Shubhash Gosine, Betty Black, Pedro Medford, Brian Blake and other contributors in 2020.

News Update – December 11

Dear Colleagues,

We took a break for our Virtual Conference. We hope that you were able to attend and that you enjoyed all the sessions. We wish to keep the dialogue going, especially on the current topics and the thought-provoking presentations. The CAA thanks the participants, presenters, sponsors and organisers.

All presentations are now available on actuview. All members have been given access codes. If you are unable to recall your code then please search your inbox for “your actuview code”.

We also have quite a few presentations that were pre-recorded as we could not fit them all in the live sessions. We would appreciate your feedback to share with those presenters.

I have deliberately left out weekend reading as I encourage everyone to explore our sessions.

Enjoy your weekend.

Please visit our website, Facebook page and LinkedIn page.

Thank you.

Shubhash Gosine

News Update – December 8

Hello Everyone,

We hope you all attended our highly successful conference last week! Keep watching our website and our actuview page for additional material coming this week.

We’ve all been focused on Conference and may have missed a very important milestone for one of our long-serving members. Here’s a feature from Jamaica’s Gleaner newspaper of last Monday.

Congratulations to Astor Duggan, his team, and all those who preceded them, who shaped Duggan Consulting Ltd. into the highly respected firm it is today.