Property and casualty insurance industry veteran Jacqueline Friedland was elected President of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries on July 1, 2021. She succeeds Michel St-Germain. During her 12-month term, the new president wants to contribute to diversity, the fight against climate change and analytics.
With more than 35 years of experience in P&C insurance to her credit, Friedland joined the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) in October 2020 as Senior Director, Property & Casualty Insurance Group. She was previously president of the actuarial firm J. Friedland Actuarial Consulting.
In an interview, Friedland discussed her plans to educate and train actuaries in climate change and emerging practices such as analytics and artificial intelligence. She said she is committed to following the recommendations of the predictive analytics working group the CIA established in March 2020. The institute’s goals include ramping up promotion and education on the pathway to Fellowship in the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (FCIA).
Modernizing training
Friedland believes the institute will be able to bring much more depth in the area of predictive analytics in its educational pathway to the FICA designation. The CIA is committed to raising the strategic importance of enhancing and promoting predictive analytics and its applications for all actuaries.
Universities will be important allies in this strategy, she adds. “Delivering and assessing education in predictive analytics cannot be done in the old way of paper and pen exams. Candidates need access to data sets as well as programming and data visualization tools, and we believe that universities are best suited for this,” she explains.
Transition risks
Friedland mentioned that OSFI classifies climate change risks into three categories: physical risk (frequency and magnitude), liability (litigation exposure) and transition to a carbon neutral economy.
The CIA president singled out transition risks, which result from efforts to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) as the economy shifts toward a smaller GHG footprint. Citing passages from the article “’Powerful signal’: In a single day, Big Oil suffers historic blows on climate,” whichappeared on Politico.eu on May 27, 2021, she noted that “the pace of change is almost numbing.”
The article recounts three events that occurred within a matter of hours on the same day: Exxon Mobil was bested by a new shareholder seeking to shake up its board; Chevron Corp shareholders asked the oil company to cut its GHG emissions; and a Dutch court ordered Royal Dutch Shell to slash emissions by 45%. Again citing the Politico article, Friedland adds that while the oil industry was taking its hits, longtime ally Ford Motor Co widened its distance from fossil fuels.
No need to reinvent the wheel
Canadian universities will play an important role in climate change training, just as they do with predictive analytics training, Friedland continues. “So much is happening so fast, and many Canadian universities have programs and/or centres of excellence related to climate change,” she points out.
The Canadian Institute of Actuaries will be able to include the best material in Pathway 1 to FCIA through its collaborative approach, she adds. The CIA is fortunate to have a wide range of educational materials to choose from, Friedland points out. She mentions new projects from the International Actuarial Association (IAA), the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) and numerous bodies in Europe and Canada such as OSFI.
She does not believe that the CIA needs to reinvent the wheel. “Instead, I want to see us leverage existing material and partner with others. We have much we can add to the discussion, Friedland says. In addition to collaborating, she feels it is important to test the material and learn from it, “pivoting as needed.”
