To wrap up the 2020 year, this post brings you the second of a series of two posts detailing the results of a survey into machine learning use in reserving in the UK and Canada. This post covers Canada. The first post, which details our findings from the UK, may be found here.
On behalf of the working party, I conducted a survey among Canadian actuaries on the use of machine learning (ML) in reserving. The survey respondents consisted of:
- Nine insurers including
- Canadian and global companies
- One reinsurer
- Six consulting firms including
- Canadian and global firms
- Three of the big 4 accounting firms
- Three telephone interviews and twelve email responses
Overall there was enthusiasm for the potential of ML to assist with setting reserves, with four insurers currently using ML in the reserving process. For three of these insurers, ML was used for additional insights, but, significantly, the final insurer used ML to book reserves.
The full findings of the survey can be found here.