Over the weekend of 7-8 March 2020, as the Lombardy region in Italy was being shut down, our group of concerned actuaries, epidemiologists and public health experts came together. It was clear to us that the world was facing a global crisis, and we wanted to volunteer our expertise to respond quickly, meaningfully and thoughtfully.
We resolved to bring rationality to the debate, aiming to strike a balance between alarmism and the complacency that still existed across much of industry and society. It was clear that modelling skills, medical and epidemiological insight and the ability to communicate complexity clearly would be valuable in the months ahead.
Our Purpose
- To help actuaries and others in thinking and responding to the COVID-19 crisis.
- To create a community and forum for actuaries and others to learn, educate, inform and influence the unfolding events in a positive and constructive way.
We pledge to do the above in a manner which will bring credit to the actuarial profession, and we will support and enhance our profession’s commitment to societal and public interest.
Our Principles
We agree to be governed by the following principles.
- The six principles of the IFoA’s Actuaries Code.
- We will seek science and data, appreciating that we will not get to the full truth and objectivity if we want to respond quickly. We seek to extricate the signal from the noise.
- We will adopt a multi-disciplinary approach and bring an innovative approach in framing both the problems and solutions. Hence, we will go out of the group to seek expertise.
- We want to respond quickly to the crisis, and we will make our material available to the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA).
- Our bulletins and blogs are necessarily often “beta versions” (or work in progress). Better and more complete studies will and can be conducted in the fullness of time. We are mindful of the trade-off between “rigour and comprehensiveness” versus “responsiveness and usefulness” and we seek to tilt our approach to the latter.
- We are all speaking in our personal capacity, and we do not represent our respective employers, organisations or IFoA’s official policy.
In our first twelve months, we produced 110 bulletins on various aspects of the pandemic. Our work has been discussed at SAGE and cited by the highest levels of government and numerous articles and quotes have appeared in the national and international media.
