Information Matrix

Actuaries are very heavy users of spreadsheets, especially Microsoft® Excel.  One question we are occasionally asked is why we wrote our software in C++, instead of letting people have direct access to our code as a spreadsheet. 

Survival models are models for continuous risk, e.g. the force of mortality, μx.  We showed in an earlier post why this is more powerful and efficient than modelling the rate of mortality, qx

We get a lot of interest in our software from Canada. We don't know specifically why this might be — despite that fact that two of our founders are Scottish, we are not aware of any distant relatives still panning for gold out there.

A colleague of mine once described parallel processing as the "work of the devil". I don't know if I'd go quite this far — this statement was made in the early nineties, when technology was that little bit less advanced than it is today.

Not all security strategies need be as dramatic as those proposed by Mission Impossible, but anyone offering SaaS needs to ensure data is accessible by only authorised users.

Another week, another giant financial institution comes crashing down.  This time it is the turn of HBOS, a large UK mortgage provider.  The problem was not one of leverage as such, since all banks are highly leveraged.

In an earlier post questioning whether we still need standard tables, we used the AIC to choose between models.

The recent bankruptcy filing for Lehman Brothers follows hard on the heels of the forced takeover of Bear Stearns earlier this year. Debt played a role in the demise of both: as with many banks and other businesses, they used borrowed money to enhance shareholder returns, a phenomenon known as leverage.

 The survival curve is simply the proportion of lives surviving to each age

Senators Barack Obama and John McCain are now the confirmed candidates for their respective parties in the forthcoming US presidential election.  Much comment on Senator McCain surrounds his age (72 as at 29th August 2008), against that of Senator Obama (47, as at 4th August 2008).