Our team recently joined reinsurance professionals from across the industry for the CAS Seminar on Reinsurance in Philadelphia. Liz Ritchie and Thrishna Samaroo represented Ezra Penland across a focused day of sessions, conversation, and a few sights from a great city.
From an ambitious keynote on the future of AI in risk leadership to candid table discussions on what it really means to lead, the program was engaging and thought-provoking. We left with sharper perspectives on some of the profession’s most pressing questions and more than a few new connections.
Sessions Attended
Keynote: Agentic AI and the Future of Risk Leadership
Speaker: Mike McGavick, Non-executive Chair and Advisor to mea Platform
The insurance industry has always been built on models, judgment, and disciplined decision-making. In this keynote, Mike McGavick explored how a new class of AI systems is beginning to participate in those processes and what that means for the way risk decisions are made. The central question for actuaries: as AI takes on more of the analytical work, how do you trust it, optimize it, and make sure the judgment that matters most stays in the right hands?
Life Lessons Kahoot — Peter Royek and Nick Klinka
A Kahoot-style format made for an engaging take on CAS professional conduct rules and Actuarial Standards of Practice. Professionalism topics can be easy to tune out, but this session kept things lively and our team walked away with a few things worth revisiting.
New Tools in the Property Pricing Horizon — Rob Silva, Todd Dziedzic, Joan Wei
This session surveyed emerging tools and approaches reshaping property pricing, a timely topic given how much the property market has shifted in recent years.
Leadership Journeys — Stephanie Rabin, Tim Aman, Isaac Espinoza
This was a standout for our team. The format centered on table discussions, giving attendees room to reflect on their own experiences alongside the speakers’ stories. Hard decisions, leadership styles, communication — the conversations were honest and the format made them feel genuinely collaborative rather than one-directional.
An Evening in Philadelphia
The seminar was capped off with a dinner hosted by Ezra Penland, bringing together actuaries for good food, great conversation, and the kind of connections that tend to form when the formal agenda is behind you. In between sessions, the team also got to take in a bit of Philadelphia itself, a city that has no shortage of things to see.
Looking Forward
The CAS Seminar on Reinsurance reinforced themes our team is tracking closely: the growing role of AI in actuarial practice, the continued importance of professional standards as the tools change around them, and what it takes to lead well in a profession that’s evolving quickly. We’re glad to have been there and look forward to bringing these conversations back to our work.
If you’d like to discuss any of these topics, reach out to our team. We’d love to connect.