Seminars

Moderator: TBD
Presenters: Craig Raymond, John Hancock Financial Services; Kevin Madigan, Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, Inc.; Sim Segal, Towers Watson; Terri Dalenta, Aviva North America

The recent financial crisis has highlighted the need for ERM. This one-day seminar examines all aspects of ERM, but from a practitioner’s point of view. In doing so, the participants will gain insight into the fundamental underpinnings of ERM, while at the same time learning more about the challenges and successes organizations have had in implementing their programs. The following topics will be covered:

Risk Governance

Leaders will cover typical approaches to ERM governance and offer their perspectives on the challenges organizations have faced in implementing and executing their frameworks. They will address the key issues of risk ownership, risk management and risk monitoring responsibilities. It’s not enough to create structure; there must be a creation of a culture and a willingness to identify and address exposures. In addition, leaders will discuss approaches to creating the right culture and the importance of senior leadership support.

Risk Identification

Experts will examine the processes organizations use to identify risks, including emerging risks. Arguably, risk identification was partly at fault for the recent crisis. Hence, speakers will address this topic in the context of how identification processes can be improved to capture the next event.

Risk Monitoring

This is a critical part of the ERM process and linked to the risk identification process. Presenters will examine the approaches used to accomplish this task and discuss the challenges.

Risk Measurement

Leaders in the risk management field will cover the different risk measurement systems commonly used in the industry and discuss the pros and cons of each. They will address the critical issue of risk aggregation, particularly in light of the systemic risk that emerged during the most recent crisis.

Risk Management

Risk management is one of the least discussed ERM topics. Speakers will review the many approaches organizations use to manage risk and will examine operational risk management. They will also look at how to manage risk once it has manifested itself.

This seminar is designed for individuals who have little ERM knowledge and experience and who wish to learn more and for practitioners who wish to gain insight into the wide range of practices utilized in the financial services industries.

Moderator: TBD
Presenters: Alexander Shipilov, TD Bank Financial Group; Simon Vaysman, TD Bank Financial Group

At the heart of every ERM initiative is one or multiple models. These models attempt to capture behaviors that are by nature unknown and difficult to predict. This one-day seminar will explore techniques required to build a reliable model to capture an array of events and their consequences. The participant will learn how to overcome challenges when building an ERM model. This seminar will have a life insurance perspective and will cover the following topics:

Stress Testing

As the first session of the seminar, time will be devoted to frame the use of models for enterprise risk management, and more particularly for computing economic capital. The session will explore the various realities that are sometime referred as stress testing:

• 99.5% VAR approach through stress on initial conditions used in the context of Solvency II and as described though the four Quantitative Impact Studies,
• sensitivity testing used to understand the impact of misestimating one parameter and thus assessing the model robustness and
• scenario testing or the use of the model to perform what-if analysis.

This session will describe the role of stress test, examine the multi faces of stress testing and will provide attendees with a broader understanding of stress tests.

Model Risk

Are your modeling results trustworthy? This session will cover the controls you need to put in place to ensure the reliability of your model. While this includes SOX-like controls and code peer review, it also includes a deep understanding of the methodology, underlying data, calibration, metrics and the approach used to come to a final answer.

Risk Aggregation

The 2008-09 experience of the financial markets brought to light many failings in projection models, especially in the area of risk aggregation. Are your models adequately capturing the interrelationships between risks-and recognizing that these relationships do not remain static? Using the experience of 2008-09 as a case study, this session highlights the importance of risk aggregation and examines alternative approaches to bring individual risks into an aggregated form, including a comparison of the matrix correlation versus the copula or joint distribution of risks approaches. The session will also consider the different perspectives being taken by insurers and regulators around the globe.

Modeling Customer Behavior

Customer behavior is difficult to model. Its optimality or sub-optimality is the main driver of the results in many cases. This irrational behavior was studied in mortgage pre-payment. This session will examine some techniques to develop valid assumptions that could be transposed to the insurance industry.

This seminar is designed for modelers who have some modeling experience and who wish to learn more and for practitioners who wish to gain insight into the wide range of practices utilized in their industries.

Moderator: TBD
Presenters: Gary Nan Tie, Traveler's

The financial landscape evolves throughout time and those who fall asleep during the stable periods are rudely awakened when volatility returns as it has during the past year or so. Enterprise risk management helps, but only if it is implemented with a strong risk culture at its base.

Gain insight from experts in banking, as well as life and casualty insurance, as they share current ERM best practices. Various regulatory entities have encouraged bankers to use company-driven ERM models for financial and nonfinancial risks to determine required regulatory capital. Insurers are using principle-based approaches to develop similar economic-based reserve and capital requirements unique to their business model. ERM implementation is a key component when optimizing results relative to risks taken.

Much has been learned in the recent past about the shortcomings of relying entirely on models. Learn what experts know about modeling and ways to improve modeling processes. You just might discover that models from others in the financial services industry can improve the methods of calculating economic capital, pricing, performance measurement and portfolio management at your company.

A panel of experts, representing various industries and perspectives, will conclude the seminar with a discussion on how challenges have been, and can be, addressed.

Presenters: Ali Samad-Khan, Stamford Risk Analytics; Barry Franklin, Towers Perrin

Moving from a Traditional Risk Management/Governance/Compliance Framework to Modern Enterprise Risk Management has become a strategic imperative for every major corporation and its stakeholders

A one day seminar led by two of the researchers of the SOA/CAS/CIA Joint Risk Management Section Sponsored Research titled “A New Approach for Managing Operational Risk”

The 2008 global financial crisis has revealed the need for a paradigm shift in mainstream risk management practices. Topics will include and not be limited to:

Risk Metrics

Traditional risk management and governance risk and compliance (“GRC”) approaches do not typically provide risk metrics that facilitate risk-reward or risk-control optimization. Modern Enterprise Risk Management, on the other hand, fosters a risk culture that reflects and harmonizes the goals of key strategic and tactical business decision makers and external stakeholders, and establishes a structured and transparent process for factoring risk into the business decision-making process.

Risk Taxonomy

Many mainstream ERM and GRC efforts fail to establish viable risk taxonomy. As a result, they do not distinguish between and among causes, events, and effects. This not only creates confusion, it also obscures the root causes of the most significant losses. A modern ERM framework would facilitate a holistic management of all risks across the enterprise, based on a consistent definition of risk and a comprehensive risk architecture/taxonomy.

Risk Modeling

Traditional risk models systematically underestimate risk because they do not adequately incorporate the impact of rare “black swan” events – evidenced by the fact that “one in a hundred year” events seem to occur every 10-15 years. In addition, some traditional risk models are biased, creating “risk-reward” arbitrage opportunities allowing unethical managers to deliberately engage in high-risk activities while appearing to operate within stakeholder risk tolerances. A modern ERM framework would accurately incorporate the impact of black swan events into risk measures and risk-based profitability metrics. Risk models under Modern ERM would combine hard data, soft data, and expert opinion in an objective, transparent and theoretically valid manner.

Risk/Return Strategy

Traditional risk management and GRC efforts also include performance benchmarking against peers, which may cause irresponsible behavior at one organization to cause an industry trend (i.e. systemic risk) due to a “follow the herd mentality.” A modern ERM framework should also reduce information asymmetries between managers and stakeholders to help confirm that managers are pursuing strategies that conform to the risk tolerance standards of the stakeholders.

This seminar is intended for everyone who works in risk management or related field or who uses risk information in decision-making.

Presented by:

And in collaboration with: