C. Seth Lester, ASA

Actuarial generalist in the commercial pharmacy benefits space with experience in core pricing and reserving functions, data storytelling and visualization, predictive modeling, public speaking, model CI/CD pipelines, and coaching Agile/Scrum teams.


Late last autumn, I took an opportunity to respond to the Society of Actuaries’ call for essays about potential disruptions and innovations in the actuarial practice space.

The bad news: I didn’t win one of the top prizes.

The good news: My essay was published anyways, and you can read it here.

Most of the essay serves as a rehash and survey of work explained in The Ethical Algorithm: The Science of Socially Aware Algorithm Design, but ends with some discussion about how the evolving generation of new actuarial modeling and predictive analytics has considerations yet to be worked out by the Actuarial Standards Board as they prepare to release the new, long-awaited Modeling ASOP. More broadly, insurance regulators at all levels of government in the US and abroad are treating applications of predictive analytics within the actuarial modeling space with a highly variable level of scrutiny.

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