SOA Podcasts - Society of Actuaries

The Young Professional Advisory Council's Adam Krompiewski speaks with Cristi-Alice Danielson, Director of Individual Products & Pricing at Wawanesa Insurance, about building a unique actuarial career with a smaller company in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the lessons she has learned along the way.

Host Ankit Nanda, FSA, MAAA, FCA, speaks with Paul Skrtich, ASA, MAAA, ACIA, Senior Vice President, Accident and Health at OdysseyRe, about how health insurance looks from the reinsurer's seat, where the tail of the claims distribution drives the economics. The conversation covers lasers on known high-cost claimants, emerging cost drivers from skin substitutes to GLP-1s and cell and gene therapies, and how ACOs and provider-payer alignment of interests reshape the risk reaching the excess layers.

Jeff Dunn, President and CEO of Cooperative Benefits Group, joins host Ankit Nanda, FSA, MAAA, FCA, to map the U.S. payer landscape and the forces reshaping it. Drawing on a career that runs from managed care pharmacy into benefits consulting, he sets out how employers, health plans, pharmacy benefit managers, providers, and consultants fit together, where incentives genuinely align and where they only appear to, and what the fiduciary and transparency environment means in practice. The conversation closes on where the market is heading over the next three to five years and what health actuaries should do differently in trend, pricing, and plan design work.

Cori Uccello, FSA, MAAA, FCA, MPP joins host Ankit Nanda, FSA, MAAA, FCA for a tour of the U.S. health insurance coverage landscape, including Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA marketplaces. Drawing on a career as the senior health fellow at the American Academy of Actuaries, MedPAC commissioner, and Congressional Budget Office panel of health advisers member, she discusses how actuarial analysis enters policy debates, where it carries weight, and what actuaries should understand about the programs shaping the market they price in.

Coaching Actuaries has become a familiar name to actuarial candidates around the world—but how did it all begin? In this episode, we sit down with Dave Kester, founder of Coaching Actuaries, to discuss the journey of building the company, the evolution of actuarial education, and what the future may hold for aspiring actuaries.