The Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) has released its 2021-2023 Strategic Plan, which is a bold new vision that sets the direction for the organization’s continued growth and success over the next three years. The inspiration for the Strategic Plan is illustrated through a new Envisioned Future that foresees the following:

CAS members are sought after globally for their insights and ability to apply analytics to solve insurance and risk management problems.

The Envisioned Future was influenced by a variety of trends that surfaced through extensive market research with employers, both within and outside the insurance industry, that pinpointed potential gaps in employee data analytics and other skill sets. The research also identified opportunities for the CAS to address those gaps and evolve the role of its members. With this market intelligence, the Strategic Plan is designed to prepare CAS members with skills in three primary areas:

1. Analytics, to tackle the important insurance and risk management problems in our data-rich world.
2. Problem-solving, built upon strong strategic thinking and communication skills.
3. Domain knowledge, specifically property-casualty insurance and risk management.

“Imagine these three skill sets as a Venn diagram,” said Jessica Leong, then incoming CAS president. “The professionals in the middle are CAS members, who possess not only an incredible depth of domain knowledge, but also creative abilities to get from data to insights to impact.”

The new Strategic Plan includes a road map for moving towards the Envisioned Future, built around three pillars — the opportunities the CAS will aggressively pursue over the next three years:

• Pillar 1. Building Skills for the Future
• Pillar 2: Diversifying the Pipeline
• Pillar 3. Expanding Globally

Of these three pillars, numbers one and two are especially important to CAS candidates: building skills for the future and diversifying the pipeline. Here are those pillars outlined more fully.

Building Skills for the Future

Earlier this year, Elon Musk invited actuaries to join Tesla to create a revolutionary insurance company, saying, “I have great respect for the actuarial profession … We want revolutionary actuaries.” Just as the profession is transforming and changing at an accelerated pace, so must the CAS revolutionize how it prepares our current members and candidates for the future. The CAS is prepared to answer the call to help develop revolutionary actuaries.

We will do this by fostering growth in the three primary areas for both candidates and members. These are the competencies actuaries need to serve as essential, deployable, agile, and creative professionals across the broad range of insurance company operations. We also want CAS members to have the intellectual curiosity and resources to acquire and build new competencies as needed once they have received their credentials. 

This allows members to be proactive and expand beyond current actuarial roles with confidence and to be employed in broader roles, including CEO, CFO, data science, and other quantitative professions. Computer-based testing, an Admissions restructure covering our entire exam and credentialing process, and a competency-based professional education program are key parts of our Strategic Plan bringing this vision to life.

Diversifying the Pipeline

In the big picture, diversifying the pipeline of CAS members ensures that we attract high-potential professionals to our community who love to solve business problems with data and analytics. Our Strategic Plan will see future CAS members emerge from a wide variety of universities, majors, degrees, and other pathways. They will be able to pursue a variety of career paths and opportunities afforded by the CAS education foundation. As a profession, we seek to increase our diversity along the lines of ethnicity, race, gender, nationality, background, and thought. To that end, we have committed to increasing our outreach efforts to potential candidates and to making diversity, inclusion, and equity a particular focus in our Strategic Plan.

These pillars will be supported by a reimagined staff and volunteer workforce, led by CAS CEO Victor Carter-Bey. “The new Strategic Plan calls for the CAS to expand, innovate, and deliver value in creative ways, and doing that requires us to embrace collaboration and teamwork,” explained Carter-Bey. “An evolution of this caliber will entail new levels of resources and support, and we will change with a spirit of optimism and tenacity as we move towards our Envisioned Future.”

These pillars, and the Strategic Plan as a whole, are important to candidates because they represent the future of the organization that they will be joining. It is an organization committed to bettering the actuarial profession through the development of future and current actuaries. And most importantly, it is an organization dedicated to helping our members and focusing on their journey throughout their career. 

Candidates are encouraged to read the new CAS Strategic Plan, and to provide any feedback by sending an email to CEO@casact.org.