The Risk Board's aims are: to generate a sense of community for all actuaries working in risk management, whether in the context of life insurance, general insurance, pensions or wider fields; to ensure CPD and education meet the requirements of that community; to take part in consultations and actively engage in public affairs; and to make sure that suitable conferences and research move the profession's involvement forward in Enterprise Risk Management.
06 MARCH 2013
The Risk Board's aims are: to generate a sense of community for all actuaries working in risk management, whether in the context of life insurance, general insurance, pensions or wider fields; to ensure CPD and education meet the requirements of that community; to take part in consultations and actively engage in public affairs; and to make sure that suitable conferences and research move the profession's involvement forward in Enterprise Risk Management.
While the Risk Board was only created back in 2008, we as a profession have been practicing risk management for over 150 years. The creation of the Risk Board and a specific "risk community" helps to ensure that we focus our resources and energies in promoting the role that actuaries can perform in the risk management space, both in the financial services industry and wider fields.
To this end, the Risk Board is leveraging cross practice working with cross attendance of board meetings and member support for our activities sourced from across all seven practice areas. To ensure you're up to date on our most recent activities and education opportunities, please subscribe to our newsletter. You can do this by updating your preferences in the members' area of the IFoA's website.
To make sure that we are delivering what the risk community requires from us, and consistent with other practice areas, we are undertaking a survey of our members. It will be interesting to see whether respondents agree with our goals and priorities and whether the community as a whole feels involved.
The Risk Board has been active in promoting a great range of educational/CPD opportunities over the past year, and all residential courses sponsored by the IFoA now include a risk management element. The IFoA's main event for actuaries and other professionals operating in the risk management space is the Risk and Investment Conference, which had well over 250 attendees last year. This year's event in June already open for bookings.
Some of our Risk Management working parties are
presenting their research at the conference. Our practice area has working parties looking at qualitative topics, such as operational risk, to more quantitative topics, such as model risk and proxy modelling.
We don't take the thought leadership at these educational events for granted. We are always seeking new ways to ensure our risk management content remains at the cutting edge, not least through our work on consultations and the research the Risk Board sponsors.
There is much on-going work on consultations:
FRC's consultation paper on Risk Reporting for Listed Companies, which provides exciting new opportunities for actuaries in risk management. The Risk Board chaired by Andrew Hitchcox has sponsored the establishment of a working party reporting to the Management Board, with Colin Ledlie as chair. The profession has also prepared a written response to the consultation in partnership with the IRM.
IFoA's review of its own approach to risk management.
FRC's 'actuarial risk project': following meetings with representatives of the FRC, we have established a joint forum for actuarial regulation with the PRA, FRC and TPR - aim to reach a shared view of the risk to public interest relating to actuarial work, in order to build a co-ordinated approach to mitigate and manage these risks.
Recent FSB consultations on risk culture and risk appetite frameworks.
The IFoA has also reviewed its own approach to risk management, which considers whether, amongst other things, it needs its own CRO!
Following the IFoA's successful sponsorship of the research into complex systems back in 2010, the Risk Board is examining other avenues that may yield similarly beneficial insights along with the subsequent publicity that such work entails. And as already indicated above, there are a wealth of working parties with grassroots support on qualitative topics, such as operational risk, to more quantitative topics, such as model risk and proxy modelling.
Further, we must not lose sight of the considerable progress made in developing our own study material and exams. Since April 2010, the total number of sits by our members (students or fellows) for ST9, our ERM subject, is 1552, with the subject helping to ensure that actuaries are the ideal choice for tomorrow's risk managers. Actuaries who pass the ST9 exam will be awarded with the Certified Enterprise Risk Actuary ("CERA") designation. Those passing or being granted exemption from the ST9 exam after 1 September 2012 will need to attend a CERA seminar also. This enables them to investigate and discuss more practical applications of enterprise risk management, which is not possible in the time allowed for the exam). A further sign of success is that ST9 is used by several other actuarial associations in helping their members gain the CERA award. Countries such as Australia, South Africa, Japan, Israel, India and Chinese Taipei as well as the CAS in the USA are using our ST9 subject for their members.
In order to increase awareness and promote the value of the CERA designation, which is the most comprehensive and rigorous globally-recognised ERM designation, we recently accepted applications for the CERA designation through the Verifiable Experienced Practitioners ("VEPs") route. The purpose of these awards is to further strengthen the establishment of the CERA qualification by recognising experienced ERM practitioners who have operated at a senior level. We trust that the recipients will serve as ambassadors for CERA, promoting the qualification and its value to others. The list of successful applicants will be advertised on the website shortly.
Our challenge for 2014 is to maintain the momentum that has been created over the past few years, which means staying focused on continuing to build a sense of community, developing our educational opportunities, and investing resources and energy in the right consultations and research.
