Meet the Candidates - Anand Khare

Education:

BA Mathematics, Rutgers University

Current Employment:

Chief Actuary, Ledger Investing

CAS Activities and Publications:

Education Structure Task Force, 2013 – 2014
Education Structure Implementation Task Force – Statistics, 2013 – 2015
Syllabus Committee, 2013 – 2015 (Part Specialist)
Syllabus and Examination Committee, 2013 – 2021
Professional Education Committee, 2013 – 2021
Member Advisory Panel, 2013 – Present (Inactive)
Admissions Technology Task Force, 2014 – 2015
Education Policy Committee, 2015 – 2018
Examination Working Group, 2021 – Present (Inactive)

Speaker, Moderator, etc. at CAS Meetings (Various), 2013 – Present
Course on Professionalism Facilitator, ca. 2014
New York City Exam Site Coordinator, ca. 2019

Co-Author, CAS Monograph #5, 2016 (1st edition) and 2020 (2nd edition)

Other Actuarial Organizations:

Board Member, Finance Chair, and Treasurer of The Actuarial Foundation, 2023 – Present

Other Professional Designations:

Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries
Member of the American Academy of Actuaries
Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter
Associate in Reinsurance

Employment History - Prior Employers :

Chubb – SVP & Actuary, 2021 – 2022

AIG – CFO, Private Client Group; Head of Technical Pricing; various others; 2015 – 2021

Milliman – Consulting Actuary, 2013 – 2015

Verisk / ISO – various roles, 2008 – 2013

LinkedIn

Awards and Recognitions:

Monograph Editorial Board Honorarium for Generalized Linear Models for Insurance Rating

First, to continue to give back to the profession and the organization that has given me so much. Serving on a board requires time and attention, and I’m at a point in my career where I feel that I have both the time and the ability to make a meaningful contribution. I’d like to work to ensure that the next generation of actuaries has access to the same opportunities that I did.

Part of this work is to continue to encourage outreach to populations that other professions miss. The actuarial profession is unique in the relative lack of economic and social barriers it puts up for prospective members. It’s possible to begin an actuarial career without earning an advanced degree, or taking an unpaid internship, or having an industry connection. We’re already well-positioned to attract smart but disadvantaged people who might have few other paths to professional employment. This is a strength that we should lean into. The CAS already offers a need-based exam reimbursement program, and I’d like to see this program expanded.

Second, because I worry that the services and support provided by the CAS aren’t scaling along with its membership, and along with the rate of technological advancement in the industry. I see an opportunity, a risk, and path forward

The opportunity is that portfolio management and insurance company management are becoming ever more technical, and a CAS education provides much of the technical foundation that’s now necessary for success in these roles. There’s a real opportunity for actuaries to “move up the value chain”, and for an actuarial education to be seen in the industry as a value-add for a wide range of potential career paths.

The risk is that while the education that the CAS provides is highly formal, both the material underlying that education and the implicit technical guidance that the CAS provides to its members are not. In other technical professions, professional judgment is often expressed as a deviation from published technical standards. We have no technical standards, and so professional judgment is all-encompassing. Every analysis has the potential to be a do-it-yourself adventure. This leads to difficulty in communicating and comparing analyses, a widening dispersion in the quality of actuarial work products, and a staggering amount of time and effort wasted on duplicative work. I expect that systematic automation and the efficiency that comes with it will eventually disrupt much of the lower-level work that we do. We should act to own this disruption ourselves, while we still can.

The path forward is a CAS that publishes technical guidance in addition to professional guidance, and a CAS that publishes educational material that’s based at least in part on evidence, and not just on traditional practice. With some effort, this will lead to a world where every CAS member has access to the same basic but high-quality starting “toolkit”, and where actuaries spend less time picking development factors off of triangles in Excel and more time doing higher-value strategic work.

The only issues I expect to advocate for are those listed in the “why do you want to serve” responses above. I’ve found that it’s easiest to get things done by starting with a relatively narrow focus, identifying objectives, developing a set of concrete proposals, and iterating on that. I’m confident that, if elected, I’d be able to work with the rest of our Board to iterate on the outline below and to build consensus on a way forward on these issues. Note that there’s a great deal of additional depth and complexity associated with each of these issues that can’t be covered here.

First Issue: Increasing outreach to high-ability, low-opportunity people that other professions miss

Objectives:

• Continue to lower economic barriers to entry into the profession, especially for the very poor
• Increase awareness of the profession in underserved communities and geographies
• Increase the efficiency of outreach efforts across the profession

Proposals:

• Further expand access to need-based exam reimbursements and scholarships
• Begin outreach to math departments in community colleges and high schools in poorer areas
• Coordinate and consolidate outreach efforts across the US-based actuarial organizations

Second Issue: Moving actuaries “up the value chain” (more focus on more valuable work)

Objectives:

• Provide every actuary with the technical “toolkit” needed to perform basic actuarial work
• Move towards standardization of approaches as a baseline to build judgment upon
• Position actuaries for management roles that fall outside the traditional actuarial remit

Proposals:

• CAS to publish evidence-based technical standards and associated tools and templates
• CAS to expand post-qualification support for leadership and non-traditional industry roles
• Change in messaging to differentiate “actuarial education” from “actuarial career”