Actuary - Daniel Suryakusuma

Tweedie GLM Interpretations and Stochastic Loss Development

I recently had the opportunity to participate in UC Berkeley's Actuarial case competition, hosted by the Cal Actuarial League. The topics of this case competition are Property & Casualty and General Analytics. The full case competition debrief is available here (.pdf), and a copy of the starter files is available here (.zip). Students were allotted roughly 2 weeks (Oct 23 - Nov 8) to complete the following tasks. Property & . . .

Actuarial

Markov Chains, Driver Risk Classification, Generating Functions, and Extinction Probability

Markov chains are essential in initiating the study of stochastic processes. A typical example is a random walk, where the transition (probabilities) of going from one state to the next depends only on the current state (location), with no relation to the past. That is, we can ignore and throw away the past history as we continue to take steps forward in the time horizon. Let's look at some examples . . .

Actuarial

Basic Ratemaking: Pricing of Insurance Products (Werner, Modlin, CAS)

My notes to be transposed here (along with written scans of notes). See the full CAS document here. Contents: 1 - Introduction 2 - Rating Manuals 3 - Ratemaking Data 4 - Exposures 5 - Premium 6 - Losses and LAE 7 - Other Expenses & Profit 8 - Overall Indication 9 - Traditional Risk Classification 10 - Multivariate Classification 11 - Special Classification 12 - Credibility 13 - Other . . .

Actuarial

Reserving: Estimation of Unpaid Claims (Friedland, CAS)

Here I've compiled outlined notes of the CAS Exam 5 text on Reserving by Friedland. It is my hope that these notes be of some use to other CAS candidates or curious students in gaining more insight and understanding across a spectrum of topics within insurance, from the claims process to various basic techniques for estimating unpaid claims. The contents (whose formatting will be fixed) are as follows. Additionally, my . . .

Actuarial

Educating Children in Actuarial Science

As a kid growing up, I was only told math could be applied into engineering, else it would be pure math for the purpose of teaching mathematics. To help address this sort of problem, Coaching Actuaries put together an absolutely adorable actuary-themed alphabet book. It's so cute, I'd even recommend grown-ups to have a glance and am including it here for that reason. Full credits go to Coaching Actuaries! For . . .

Projects

Tweedie Distribution & the Generalized Linear Model

Tweedie distributions are a special case of exponential dispersion models and are particularly useful in generalized linear models, as in fitting claims data to statistical distributions. We use exponential dispersion models (and particularly the Tweedie distribution) for pure premium approaches for actuarial estimations. There are particular cases where the Tweedie compound Poisson distribution is suitable and appropriate for a given regression. See here for a useful overview on using a . . .

Exams

Passed FM/2

Just passed FM! I’ve been so busy lately with a great mix of things, but it’s a huge relief to pass my second exam. At this point I know I'll work to make this website informational and educational to help fellow aspiring actuaries grow. I’ll revisit my notes on P/1 and FM/2 to make study notes to supplement M Finan’s texts (which are fantastic . . .

Exams

Determinants of Interest Rates

This second installment of study notes for exam FM/2 covers determinants of interest rates. The objective like the first installment covering interest rate swaps is to provide studying for the FM exam with the key points and takeaways from the topic at hand. Determinants of Interest Rates is tested on the new syllabus for exam FM/2 with a weight of 0~10% according to the learning objectives syllabus. . . .

Exams

Interest Rate Swaps

This is the first installment of additional study notes for exam FM/2. The objective of this study note is to provide other students with a streamlined review of new material tested for the exam in the new syllabus starting July 2017. Note that this is no replacement for the actual document; instead, this should be used as a sort of study guide. The full SOA article on interest rate . . .

Health and Benefits

Health & Benefits: A First Look

Health & Benefits - A First Look Today I attended a CAL informational presentation from Mercer from their San Francisco practice, which has about 100 people in their Health & Benefits team, and about 30 people on the Wealth management team. Presenters included Tim Oakes, Wendy Tan, and Alexa Garzelli on the Health & Benefits side, and Deidre Schelin and Marc Corbeil on the Wealth side. As it stands, Mercer's . . .

CAL

Actuarial Career Panel - Fall 2017

Actuarial Career Panel - Fall 2017 Thursday evening was a memorable one for me. I had the privilege of hearing from actuarial analysts from different companies around the bay area in different fields speak bits about their careers, their day-to-day, and tips and advice as to how to move forward in the actuarial career path. Moderated by EVP Jackson Meyers, CAL held a discussion with company representatives from Mercer, Willis . . .

Actuarial

First Actuarial Exam! Passed Exam P/1

Super stoked to receive a preliminary pass today for my first actuarial exam, Exam P/1. It's not much, but it's a huge step for me moving forward. I've been studying for a month and I'm really glad it went well. Next up for me will be FM/2 in October. It'll be a grind, but I'm looking to challenge myself and push my limits and encourage myself to get . . .