17 th Global Conference of Actuaries Role of Actuaries in Enterprise Risk Management Rajiv Mukherjee and Sonjai Kumar Executive Summary The paper discusses the role of actuary in the area of Enterprise Risk Management and to explore this new field because of their good understanding of the insurance business. The paper discusses the components of risk management where actuaries can be involved in the risk management in insurance business and also in other wide financial area such as banking, mutual funds etc. The paper advocates that the actuaries have the required technical skills to excel in other financial areas in risk management, however they have to ramp up their financial risk management skills. The paper identifies the Liquidity, Credit risk and Operational risk as the areas where actuaries have to focus to make a foray in the other financial market in risk management. The paper also recommends the steps for the actuarial profession to make to market actuarial skills in the area of ERM in wider field. 1. Introduction The last two decades have been a focal point in the history of financial services. The multiple failures in the risk events witnessed during this periods which had brought risk management into sharp focuss. It is into this backdrop that Enterprise Risk Management has emerged as one of the major areas of work within risk management. It is now seen as a potent answer to the “Changing risks expecting the unexpected”. The idea of integrated risk culture has become a talking point. The position of Chief Risk Officer has now been recognised as a critical position. This can become wider fields for actuaries in Insurance and other areas opening up new avenues of opportunities and enhancement in visibility to wider public. 2. Evolution of ERM There are many debacles happened majorly in the last two decades leading to billions in claim settlements, lost revenue and bad reputation. Some of the few well know losses are Bearing Bank (1 billion USD), Morgan Stanley (79 million GBP), Equitable Life ( closed to new business) etc. This over the years have led to change from silo based thinking of risk management towards a more integrated approach which is taking shape as ERM. It was felt strongly that a risk management culture needs to be made an integral part of all areas of the business thought process that will lead to a proper allocation of capital and performance measurement on risk adjusted basis. This captures the reality as to where the company is heading. Insurers and other organisations are giving enterprise-level risk management increasing attention, high-level accountability and clear responsibilities befitting a legitimate strategic function and discipline
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17th
Global Conference of Actuaries
Role of Actuaries in Enterprise Risk Management
Rajiv Mukherjee and Sonjai Kumar
Executive Summary
The paper discusses the role of actuary in the area of Enterprise Risk Management and to explore this
new field because of their good understanding of the insurance business. The paper discusses the
components of risk management where actuaries can be involved in the risk management in insurance
business and also in other wide financial area such as banking, mutual funds etc. The paper advocates
that the actuaries have the required technical skills to excel in other financial areas in risk
management, however they have to ramp up their financial risk management skills. The paper
identifies the Liquidity, Credit risk and Operational risk as the areas where actuaries have to focus to
make a foray in the other financial market in risk management. The paper also recommends the steps
for the actuarial profession to make to market actuarial skills in the area of ERM in wider field.
1. Introduction
The last two decades have been a focal point in the history of financial services. The multiple failures
in the risk events witnessed during this periods which had brought risk management into sharp focuss.
It is into this backdrop that Enterprise Risk Management has emerged as one of the major areas of
work within risk management.
It is now seen as a potent answer to the “Changing risks expecting the unexpected”. The idea of
integrated risk culture has become a talking point. The position of Chief Risk Officer has now been
recognised as a critical position. This can become wider fields for actuaries in Insurance and other
areas opening up new avenues of opportunities and enhancement in visibility to wider public.
2. Evolution of ERM
There are many debacles happened majorly in the last two decades leading to billions in claim
settlements, lost revenue and bad reputation. Some of the few well know losses are Bearing Bank (1
billion USD), Morgan Stanley (79 million GBP), Equitable Life ( closed to new business) etc. This
over the years have led to change from silo based thinking of risk management towards a more
integrated approach which is taking shape as ERM.
It was felt strongly that a risk management culture needs to be made an integral part of all areas of the
business thought process that will lead to a proper allocation of capital and performance measurement
on risk adjusted basis. This captures the reality as to where the company is heading. Insurers and other
organisations are giving enterprise-level risk management increasing attention, high-level
accountability and clear responsibilities befitting a legitimate strategic function and discipline
17th
Global Conference of Actuaries
Changing priority focus to risk management towards ERM
In 1992, the London Stock Exchange introduced new regulations following a series of high profile
corporate frauds and accounting scandals. Following the debacle in the insurance industry resulting
from the collapse of insurers and their failure to honour insured pensions and other guaranteed
benefits, the U.S. Department of Labour promulgated an interpretive bulletin in 1995 dealing with the
selection of safe annuity providers. A year earlier, the NAIC (National Association of Insurance
Commissioners) issued a major solvency regulation in the form of risk-based capital requirements for
property/casualty insurance companies.
The development of national standards on Risk Management began with the first-ever Australia/New
Zealand Risk Management Standard in1995 creating a generic framework for the risk management
process as part of an organization‟s culture. The supervisory authorities for the financial services
industry include Canada‟s OSFI, the United Kingdom‟s Financial Services Authority system of risk
based supervision and rest of the world is following it up.
In 2004 Basel II moved banking practices towards risk sensitive capital requirements and assessments
based on banks‟ internal systems as inputs to capital calculations.Minimum capital standards under
pillar 1 were a robust implementation of supervisory review of capital assessments (pillar 2) and
market discipline (pillar 3).
Similarly, the Solvency-II programme is also based on three pillar approach in the insurance sectors
started in 2008 and is slated to be implemented in 2016 involving all EU countries. Strength of
Actuaries
The key working areas of actuaries historically have been Pricing, Valuation, Modelling ,Asset
liability management (ALM) and Experience analysis etc. The key strengths of actuaries are
Long term understanding of financial business and cash flows e.g long term
assumption setting
Applying the quantitative skills/tools to price and value risk
Knowledge of insurance business and its application
Dealing with various stakeholders to communicate complex results in simple terms.
Dealing with such projects as Solvency-II successfully which shows ability to adapt
rapidly in a completely new business environment.
Historically, actuaries have been active in managing the mortality, lapse, expense and interest rate risk
on silo basis. However, over the last decade or so the playing field changed a lot with increasing
complexity of the products being developed today and the increased competition from banks, mutual
funds, and other financial institutions, are forcing actuaries to increase their risk analysis skills and
perform more testing before launching a new product into the market. In our opinion, actuaries have
very good understanding on the liability side of the insurance business; however they have to develop
17th
Global Conference of Actuaries
themselves in the financial side of the business. These strengths of actuaries make them a good a
candidate for the ERM as risk based capital is central to the ERM culture and risk management help
improve the shareholder‟s value..
Evolution Solvency-II
Solvency II is based on economic risk-based solvency requirements across all EU Member States. The
insurance companies are required to hold capital against market risk, credit risk, operational risk and
underwriting (life, non-life and health) risk. Solvency-II is designed on three pillars approach:
Pillar 1: contains the quantitative requirements designed to capture insurance, credit, market,
operational, liquidity risk and set aside the capital for each risk and allow diversification of risks to
arrive at overall capital requirement.
Pillar 2: contains qualitative requirements on undertakings such as risk management as well as
supervisory activities. Specifically, insurers must carry out their Own Risk and Solvency Assessment
(ORSA) to quantify their ability to continue to meet the SCR and MCR in the near future, given their
identified risks and associated risk management processes and controls.
Pillar3:serves to strengthen market discipline by introducing disclosure requirements.
Role of actuaries
Actuaries are actively involved in the determination of economic capital under the Pillar-I based on
risks of the company, using the internal model or using the standard formula. As capital is a function
of risk, therefore, there is a direct value addition in optimization of capital by managing the risks
better. This will also enhance the profit of the company in terms of embedded value or yearly profit.
Actuaries have been at the forefront of this modelling exercise as they know the intricacies of the
business.
Under the Pillar-II, there is a plenty of space available for actuaries to get involved in insurance and
financial risk as the risk management helps in optimizing the use of capital and maximizing the profit.
Actuaries are also involved in Own Risk and Solvency Assessments (ORSA) reporting
Under Pillar-III, producing the end results templates for the final implementation-This is most critical
of all. As it is anticipated that under Solvency-II the solvency reporting will be more frequently done
so an automated template is required to be built. Many companies are using this opportunity to discard
the resource deployed in these activities by completely revamping the reporting methods and IT
infrastructure to support that. This is a huge endeavour and actuaries are at the forefront of that.
17th
Global Conference of Actuaries
The importance of Solvency-II lies in the fact that it has thoroughly challenged the profession‟s ability
to handle a project of such scale and brought out the fact that actuaries can handle end to end risk
management in insurance industry. This suggests that profession can foray into the ERM area which
is applied across the company and has much bigger scale and complexity. In order to perform the risk
management exercise, there is a need to define the risk management framework. Apart from other
requirements under the risk management framework, one of the key components of risk management
framework is risk management control cycle which actuaries have been aware and using in their
regular working cycle.
3. Risk Management control cycle
The key components of risk management control cycle are Risk Identification, Risk Measurement,
Risk Management, Risk Monitoring and Risk Reporting (IMMMR).
Risk Identification
Risk identification is based on top down and bottom up approach where in top down approach risk is
identified at entity level while in bottom approach risk is identified at function level. The key places
of risk identification are at a time of business planning, product pricing, ongoing product management
etc.
Risk Measurement
Risk is assessed in the context of the risk appetite of an organisation. In practice, the risk appetite
should be agreed and given in clear terms before risks are actually measured. Risk assessment
includes the question of whether a risk can be quantified, as well of the question of how to sensibly
aggregate risks. The key techniques of risk measurements are calculation of Economic Capital, VaR,
SST etc.
Risk Management
Risk management is performed through (Transfer risk)- to third party by paying small premium;
(Risk Removal)- by not venturing into the risky opportunities; (Risk Reduction) - by managing
through setting up processes and control; ( Risk Avoidance)-if it possible to avoid such as not to
write options or guarantees under the product; ( Risk retention) - if it is not possible to transfer,
remove, reduce or avoid. Risk management is a key area in managing the residual risk and risks lying
on extreme left tail of the distribution.
Risk Monitoring
Key risks are monitored through management information; Monitor impact on key metrics such as
economic capital, liquidity and monitor early warning signals through SST, trend information and
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Global Conference of Actuaries
analysis of forecast. Risk monitoring helps in feedback loop to risk identification and risk
measurement. Without this process, the risk management exercise would be incomplete, so this is a
very important link the risk management control cycle.
Risk reporting
4. Risk reporting is performed by informing the key stakeholders such as Senior Management,
Board, and Board sub-committees such as ALCO, Risk Management Committees Regulator,
Rating Agencies and Policyholder/Bank customer. Application of risk management in
Life Insurance and Banking
Actuaries with their current knowledge and enhancing it to risk management can be very useful in
entering into ERM area not only in insurance sector but also in other financial institutions such as
Banking, Mutual fund etc. In order to enter into the other wider financial areas, actuaries have to
enhance their skills towards financial risk management.
Actuaries can help in managing the risk using the risk management framework of IMMMR.Risk
identification is the first key step in moving towards the risk management. The key risks in life
insurance are
Insurance risk ( Mortality/morbidity, Lapse risk, Expense risk)