By: Darrell Knapp
WHEN I BECAME THE ACADEMY’S 60TH PRESIDENT in November—in my 40th year as an Academy member—I was reflecting on the value of being an Academy member and an Academy volunteer (27 years and counting). And, speaking of numbers, the Academy will mark its 60th anniversary this year.
Helping the public understand the value of our expertise as actuaries hinges on one critical fact: Being an actuary is much more than a job—it also represents being part of a profession that is accountable to others in a way that requires us to stay current and ethical in our practice.
Actuaries themselves are a value proposition. When an employer hires an actuary, they’re getting someone who not only understands numbers, risk, and probability, but also someone who is subject to our actuarial standards of practice and the Code of Professional Conduct.
“Value” will be a key theme in my President’s Messages of practice, qualification standards, and the Code this year—the value of Academy membership, extra and added value through the rewards of volunteering, the value to the public we serve as part of our mission statement, the value employers get from engaged and informed (and professionally compliant) members, and more.
Looking back to 2024, the Academy’s work provided an enormous amount of value to members, the public, and stakeholders at both the state and federal level. The Academy participates meaningfully in National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and National Council of Insurance Legislators (NCOIL) meetings throughout the year—most recently at NAIC’s Fall National Meeting and NCOIL’s annual meeting in November—and engaging on key professionalism issues with, and offering value to, regulators at these meetings.
The annual “Hill visits,” held each spring in Washington, D.C., offer the opportunity for volunteers to bring the Academy’s objective, nonpartisan perspective—and value—to federal regulators, policymakers, and lawmakers and their staff across multiple practice areas. This coming spring’s Hill visits with officials from the incoming Trump administration,
and the new Congress, will offer more opportunities for the Academy to
offer our respected perspective on key casualty, health, and retirement issues likely to be at the forefront of lawmakers’ agendas within the important window of the new administration’s first 100 days.
Following on the Academy’s Health Equity Symposium in late 2023—which brought together government officials, regulators, and industry representatives to discuss improving health equity—last June’s “ERISA at 50” Academy symposium provided a timely discussion on the history of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. The well-attended ERISA symposium—held within view of the U.S. Capitol dome—added value by bringing experts (including top Social Security Administration actuaries) together to look at what the landmark law’s current context means for retirement security going forward. Both events highlighted the Academy’s ability to bring diverse stakeholders together to discuss issues and constantly expand the reach of its public policy work to meet emerging public policy needs and milestones, all of which generate greater awareness of the actuarial profession and what it means to be an MAAA. Continuing the theme of value, look for more Academy symposiums this year.
Last year, the NAIC asked the Academy to develop knowledge statements for life actuaries who serve as appointed actuaries, illustration actuaries, and qualified actuaries, which we expanded to cover health appointed actuaries. A follow-up request has come to review existing NAIC casualty knowledge statements compared with the syllabi of U.S. actuarial credentialling organizations. This underscores the relationship of trust we have worked hard to establish, maintain, and grow with the NAIC over time.
Furthering this important stakeholder relationship, NAIC President Andrew Mais and CEO Gary Anderson presented together in a “View from the States” general session at the Academy’s Envision Tomorrow annual meeting in Washington last October. Another value proposition at Envision Tomorrow has been the Academy’s annual service and recognition awards, including for the past three years a group of Rising Actuary Award recipients—young actuaries who represent the profession’s future.
The Academy provided information to the general public through the 2024 Election Issues Clearinghouse and papers on key issues such as climate change and solvency of Medicare and Social Security. It also updated the popular Social Security Challenge.
The Academy had 300-plus resources and 6,000-plus touchpoints in 2024. These included 35 webinars, the Envision Tomorrow annual meeting’s 17 sessions, more than 50 professionalism and public policy presentations, 75-plus newsletters and 30-plus blog posts, 16 podcasts, two professionalism papers and two law manuals, 500-plus social media posts, and more than 5,700 media mentions.
Throughout the January/February issue of Contingencies, various articles discuss areas in which the Academy plans to continue to provide value throughout 2025. My predecessor Lisa Slotznick ably laid out the value of the MAAA and new member requirements beginning in 2026, and I plan to focus on additional areas of value throughout the year, including areas such as volunteering, membership, and more.
