In-person: Honorary Fellowship Ceremony

As announced at our Annual Convention 2024, Andrew Smith has been elected as an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Actuaries in Ireland.

The SAI President, Roz Briggs, will formally confer Andrew Smith with his Honorary Fellowship following a presentation given by Andrew himself and the event will conclude with drinks and canapes. 

During the evening, we will present Tony Gilhawley with the Bruce Maxwell Medal for Outstanding Contribution to the Society.

Description of the presentation: If Not Normal, then What?

Gauss described the normal probability distribution more than 200 years ago. Partly thanks to its analytical properties, the normal distribution underpins many calculations used by actuaries, including guarantee pricing, least squares regression, investment portfolio optimisation and solvency capital aggregation. Normal distributions also play a role in machine-learning algorithms, such as model-based clustering and generative AI tools.

Like any simplifying model assumption, normal distributions are not an exact fit to most real data. What are the implications for our methods? Can we tweak them a bit, or do they completely collapse and new approaches are needed?