News Digest 20100223-20100301

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ASM AGM and Dinner 2010

The Actuarial Society of Malaysia held its Annual General Meeting and Dinner yesterday in Hotel Impiana KLCC.  The event was attended by close to 100 members, despite it being held on the eve of a long weekend.

The event started with 2 invited speakers delivering papers that were not technical, for a change. Sridharan Nair, a PwC auditor, presented the broad insurance outlook post Global Financial Crisis while Sophia Ch'ng shared her work experience in particular in areas related to her winning the YAMA award.

The AGM proper started more than 30 minutes after the scheduled time with various reports from Council members. An amendment to the ASM's Constitution to formally introduce the FASM (Fellow of Actuarial Society of Malaysia) designation was put to vote after lengthy discussions.  It was resolved that a new FASM must be recommended by 2 existing FASMs and must fulfill 1-year related actuarial work experience locally within the 3 years preceding the application to become an FASM.  The FASM must also be a Fellow of a recognised global actuarial body such as The Institute of Actuaries of Australia, The Institute of Actuaries in England, Society of Actuaries in the United States, Faculty of Actuaries in Scotland, the Canadian Institute of Actuaries and the Casualty Actuarial Society in the United States.

With the change in Constitution in 2008, yesterday also saw the election of ASM's first ever President Elect - Liew Pek Hin.  Liew's existing Vice President position was in turned filled by Yap Chee Keong.  Nicholas Yeo in turn was elected to fill the position vacated by Chee Keong.

The full list of ASM 2010-2011 Council:

President:	Patrick Cheah
President Elect:	Liew Pek Hin
Vice President:	Yap Chee Keong
Secretary:	Nor Aida Daud
Treasurer:	Azim Mithani
Committee Members:	Yoon Yew Khuen
	Chin Tze How
	Loh Sheng Chieh
	Nicholas Yeo

Buffet dinner was served immediately after AGM. 15 lucky members also walked away with shopping vouchers sponsored by MLRe during dinner.

Sophia Ch'ng presenting her Paper: Experience and Achievements relating to YAMA awards.

MC of the day.

Sridharan Nair presenting "Reshaping the Insurance Industry".

The AGM in full force.

President delivering his speech.

The ASM Council 2010/11.

EAAC Closing Ceremony and Farewell Dinner

The 15th EAAC closed after 4 days of events. A Farewell Dinner was held immediately after the Closing Ceremony.

Malaysia officially received the EAAC flag in the Closing Ceremony, after being chosen as the host country for the 16th EAAC.

During the Farewell Dinner, in accordance with the EAAC tradition, each member country went on the stage to perform in the Talent Show. Australia was announced the Champion with Singapore and Malaysia in the 2nd and 3rd place respectively.

Closing Ceremony and Farewell Dinner Photos:

The 15th EAAC Organising Committee Chairman passes the EAAC flag to the 16th EAAC Organising Committee Chairman.

Malaysia is officially the host country for the 16th EAAC

Talent Show: Australia

Talent Show: Indonesia

Talent Show: The Philippines

Talent Show: Singapore

Talent Show: Chinese Taipei

Talent Show: Japan

Talent Show: Thailand

Talent Show: Hong Kong

Talent Show: South Korea

Performance by the Korean Children Choir


See you in 2 years time in Kuala Lumpur

Happy birthday ASM and something on EAAC

Do you know that the Actuarial Society of Malaysia was founded on this day 31 years ago? I bet most people have forgotten.

Well happy birthday, ASM!

And do you know that ASM was actually the first host country for the East Asian Actuarial Conference back in 1981? It was called "Actuarial Society of Malaysia, 1981 International Seminar". Almost all of us were not in the industry then and of course for the younger ones , you were not even born!

This year the 15th EAAC will be held in Seoul and the event will take place next week. 11 delegates from Malaysia have signed up. This is a much higher number compared to 3 Malaysian delegates who signed up for the 1999 EAAC also held in Seoul which I attended (only 2 attended out of the 3 who signed up). In case you don't know, Malaysia is the host country for the 16th EAAC to be held in year 2011 tentatively from 10 - 13 October, after a long 30-year wait.

Host countries for the 16 EAACs:

1981 Malaysia
1983 Singapore
1985 Philippines
1987 Hong Kong
1989 Taiwan
1991 Indonesia
1993 Singapore
1995 Japan
1997 Thailand
1999 Korea
2001 Hong Kong
2003 Philippines
2005 Indonesia
2007 Japan
2009 Korea
2011 Malaysia

Stay tuned and we will bring you more news on EAAC in days to come and over the next 2 years.

Stochastic Asset Modelling

Ng Hui Ming and Philip Mowbray presented Stochastic Asset Modelling and Designing Retirement Portfolios talks respectively to ASM today at MAA Auditorium. The talks attracted close to 80 ASM's members attending. Even with such huge turnout, the auditorium looked so empty because of its huge size as can been seen from the photos below.

Hui Ming covered topics like Introduction to stochastic modelling, Applications of stochastic modelling within the life insurance industry, Calibrating stochastic models and Challenges faced. Philip on the other hand presented 3 case studies using retirement products commonly seen in the life insurance industry to illustrate the application of stochastic modelling.

1 CPD hour is awarded for members who attended the talks.

Individual Capital Assessment Talk

ASM organised a Talk on Individual Capital Assessment (ICA) for its members today at Great Eastern. The Talk was well attended by close to 80 members. Some members arrived at 3:30 pm possibly unaware of the change of time in view of the Puasa month.

ICA is the UK's approach to RBC. During the Talk, Hui In, the Malaysian actuary who returned from UK, highlighted the ICA methodologies, the impact of ICA to the life insurance companies and the differences among ICA, RBC, Solvency II and Swiss Solvency Tests.

Members who attend the Talk are entitled to 1.5 CPD hours.

For other ASM's news, please click on ASM label below.

ASM Actuarial Idol

ASM held its first ever Actuarial Idol Singing Competition in conjuction with its 31st Annual Dinner yesterday at Grand Millennium hotel in Kuala Lumpur.

The event was attended by 170 members. 9 groups participated in the Actuarial Idol Singing Competition. The President and the Immediate Past President were invited as the judges for the competition. However, their scores carried only 50% weightage on the final results, the other 50% was dependent on the audience response. It was no surprise to see strong support groups mainly comprising the fellow colleagues of the competition participants making loud noises during the final moment before the results were finalised.

The Actuarial Idol competition was won by Isaac Chiew from Watson Wyatt, with 2 ladies from Prudential and the trio from Great Eastern winning the 2nd and 3rd places respectively. It was a night full of fun, who dare to say that actuaries are a bunch of boring people!

Earlier that afternoon, Surinderpal Singh and Jefferey Zain each presented a professional paper to the members, one on Genetic Underwriting and the other one on Takaful.

During the dinner, ASM also paid tribute to Benny Ng, a fellow actuary who passed away in April this year.

More photos

Videos:

1. Isaac Chiew - My Way


2. All Contestants

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