Course co-ordinator(s): Andrew David Stott (Edinburgh).
Aims:
The purpose of the Actuarial Risk Management course is to embed the skills necessary to run:
- a life insurance company; or
- other related enterprise.
The core skills are introduced here and expanded in other courses
Summary:
- To provide students with a thorough grounding in the strategic concepts required to manage the business activities of financial institutions and programmes.
- To provide students with an understanding of the various types of risk faced and the processes used to manage those risks.
- To enable students to make use of those processes in order to formulate, justify and present plausible and appropriate solutions to business problems.
Detailed Information
Course Description: Link to Official Course Descriptor.
Pre-requisites: none.
Location: Edinburgh.
Semester: 2.
Syllabus:
Solving a Commercial Problem
- The requirements and use of a model and how its results should be tested
- How model assumptions should be determined
- The expenses that should be considered
- How costs of providing benefits based on contingent events should be determined
- How prices should be set to pay for benefits based on contingent events
- The principles, objectives and measures of investment management
- The approaches to establishing provisions
- The relationship between assets and liabilities
Living with the Solution to a Commercial Problem
- Approaches to maintaining profitability
- How expected results can be projected
- How actual results are reported and what systems are required to do this
- The issues facing the providers of benefits on contingent events relating to the reporting of risk
- The principles of asset management and allocation
- The principles of capital management
- The management of surplus and the issues surrounding its distribution/retention
- The issues that need to be taken into account on insolvency or closure
- The issues surrounding the management of options and guarantees
Ongoing Monitoring
- How experience is monitored and models/assumptions revised
Principal Terms
- The principal terms used in financial services and risk management
Reading list:
There is no required reading for the course. However, students are expected to read more widely in order to develop a ‘common sense’ in respect of managing actuarial risks. The following covers the content of the course:
- Understanding Actuarial Management: the actuarial control cycle edited by Clare Bellis, Richard Lyon, Stuart Klugman and John Shepherd, published by The Institute of Actuaries of Australia.
SCQF Level: 11.
Credits: 15.
Other Information
Help: If you have any problems or questions regarding the course, you are encouraged to contact the course leader.
Canvas: further information and course materials are available on Canvas