ICAT, IFoA: COVID 19 has affected us in all the ways that we couldn’t even imagine. With the global activities coming to a halt altogether due to the pandemic, it has affected different nations in different manners.
All the industries, be it Aviation, Supply Chain Management, Food Processing, Transporation, Telecommunication, Financial Services, etc.have been severely affected.
The unpredictability of the financial markets and Gold Prices stooping an all-time high is enough to understand how momentous the situation is!
So it is very important to model the potential impact of the entire COVID-19 situation in the years to come so that decisions can be taken for the speedy recovery of the economy.
And who else can perform the task of modelling better than Actuaries?
Therefore, IFoA has come forward with setting up of COVID-19 Action Task Force, also called as ICAT. It is set up with the agenda to plan for the potential impact of COVID-19 on the Insurance sector, Retirement sector, Banks, Investment analysis, and other financial services.
ICAT seeks to work closely with LinkedIn Covid-19 Actuaries Response Group, an informal group set up with a similar purpose. COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group focuses on various industries to help them understand the impact of the pandemic. It aims to improve their decision making and response to the pandemic with the available informative resources and research.
About COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group
The COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group was formed in early March by a group of professionals with the aim of supporting various industries during the Pandemic. They joined hands on Linkedin to create this informal group.
Their purpose, as described by them on Linkedin itself, is to help actuaries in thinking and responding to the COVID-19 crisis and to create a common forum for discussion of ideas, events, to make sure the unfolding of unexpected events in the future happens positively and constructively.
The group aims to enhance the actuarial profession’s commitment to public and societal interest.
Here is the website on which this group releases its Bulletin related to COVID-19. They also publish regular mortality updates for different geographies. They are also working to make Coronavirus-related data and insights available to a larger population.This will help them in decision making process for their respective businesses.
IFoA’s Role
The volunteer activity across the organization is led by Louise Pryor (incoming President-Elect of IFoA) along with Colin Dutkiewicz (Chair, Life Board) and Jo Davis (Head of Communities) as a part of IFoA’s response to COVID-19.
One of the first steps the ICAT took was to survey volunteers to take the responses from working actuaries and other volunteers to brainstorm ideas that will inform IFoA operations and ICAT workstreams. See the results of the survey here.
Various members of the community publish results of their research study related to their profession and Coronavirus on IFoA’s website. General public can access this information for free. For eg., Various studies regarding the impact of Coronavirus on various segments of work in Life business, Pension valuation, Risk Management (Cyber Security, Enterprise Risk Management) will be published in this space.
Overall, this volunteer initiative by IFoA and various actuaries around the world tells us that we are in a profession that is fast-paced, ever-changing, and is always ready to do something for the greater good of the society and other businesses around the world!
So, What more to do in this era for pride in one’s profession, earning the respect of others, and a decent agenda for the world than to become an Actuary?
