Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Football and Actuarial Science

It has become popular to offer prizes or monetary awards in the event of something occurring. Examples are numerous:

  • Prizes for holes-in-one at golf tournaments.
  • Awards for successfully making a basket from half-court at half-time of an NBA game.
  • Taco Bell's offer, a few years ago, of a free taco to everyone in the U.S. if the space station Mir hit a target off the coast of Australia when it fell back to earth (it missed....).
  • The capture of the Loch Ness monster (I think it was Seagrams that offered an award for this a few decades ago -- they insured this contingency with Lloyd's of London) (no one cashed in....).

Here is a link to an article describing a recent example -- free furniture because the Bears shut out the Packers! (Woof woof!!!)

As an actuary, how would YOU have priced this?

- Rick

Sunday, September 3, 2006

Where Do Pensions Come From?

Here's an interesting and thought-provoking article on some of the socioeconomic and political dynamics underlying the early days of pensions, and how changes in those dynamics are helping to cause the concerns and problems associated with current pension systems.

- Rick