On 15 December 2010, André Lévy-Lang, Chairman of the Risk Foundation and President of the jury, and Denis Kessler, Chairman and CEO of SCOR, awarded the actuarial prizes for France during a ceremony at the Cercle de l’Union Interalliée in Paris. 

 

Manuel Plisson of the University of Paris-Dauphine was awarded the Young Doctors’ prize for his thesis entitled “Assurabilité et développement de l’assurance dépendance” (“The insurability and development of long-term care insurance”), while Julie Gamonet of the Centre d’Etudes Actuarielles was awarded the Young Actuaries’ prize for her dissertation entitled “Modélisation du risque opérationnel dans l’assurance”(“Operational risk modeling in insurance”). The jury was composed of André Lévy-Lang, Richard Batty, Europe Director at Towers Watson, Jean-Luc Besson, former Chief Risk Officer of SCOR, Marie-Christine Brassier, a Partner at Altia, Catherine Bruneau, Professor at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, François de Varenne, Chief Executive Officer of SCOR Global Investments SE, Pierre Devolder, Professor at the Catholic University of Louvain, Renaud Dumora, Finance & Risks Director at BNP Paribas Assurance, Nicole El Karoui, Professor at the Pierre and Marie Curie University, Christian Fettig, Group Insurance Director at Allianz France, Jean-Pierre Indjehagopian, Professor at ESSEC, Eric Lecoeur, SCOR Group Chief Actuary, Charles Levi, General Secretary of the Polish Actuarial Association, Philippe Marie-Jeanne, P&C market Director at AXA France, and Gilles Thivant, French market Director at SCOR Global Life.

 

For the first time, the Institute of Actuaries joined forces with SCOR for the 2010 French Actuarial Awards. SCOR also held Actuarial Awards in four other countries: Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Switzerland (see below).

 

Denis Kessler, SCOR’s Chairman and CEO, commented: “These prizes reward young actuaries from five European countries for their innovative risk management projects, thereby demonstrating the importance that SCOR has placed on the development of actuarial science in Europe since 1996. Today’s launch of the SCOR Global Risk Center is a new expression, in both the actuarial and other fields, of SCOR’s commitment to the knowledge and science of risks.”

 

 

On 2 December in Milan, Italy, Ricardo Ottaviani, a professor at La Sapienza University in Rome and President of the jury, awarded the Italian prizes in the presence of Umberto Gavazzi, EMEA Chief Underwriting Officer of SCOR Global P&C, and Yvan Besnard, Worldwide Treaty Chief Underwriting Officer of SCOR Global P&C. The prizes went to Federico Guerreschi and Fabio Moraldi, both of the Sacro Cuore Catholic University of Milan, for their dissertations entitled “Longevity Risk and mortality table”, and “The Evaluation of the cost of claims in Property and the assessment of risk capital”.

 

On 23 November in London, UK, Chris Daykin, former Head of the British Government’s Actuarial Department and President of the jury, awarded two prizes from SCOR UK in the presence of Denis Kessler, Lord Lawson, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Emily Maitlis, a BBC journalist. The winners were Jennifer Healy of Edinburgh’s Heriot Watt University, for her dissertation entitled “Multifactorial Genetic Disorder and Market Withdrawal”, and Tom Hoad of City University London, for his dissertation entitled “Insurance Contract Credit Default Swaps”.

 

On 15 November in Cologne, Germany, the jury, composed of Frieder Knüpling, Head of Financial & Actuarial at SGL, deputy CEO of SGL and member of the SCOR SE Executive Committee, Hans-Joachim Zwiesler, a professor at the University of Ulm and Vice President of the jury, Klaus Sticker, Board member of Signal Iduna Gruppe, Damir Filipovic of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de LausanneEPFL and the Vienna Institute of Finance, Mogens Steffensen of the University of Copenhagen, and Dietmar Zietsch, SCOR consultant, awarded the German prizes. The winners were Frederik Ruez of the University of Ulm, for his thesis entitled “The Impact of Stochastic Volatility on Pricing, Hedging and Hedge Efficiency of Guaranteed Minimum Withdrawal Benefits for Life Contracts”, Ramona Maier of the University of Tübingen, for her dissertation “Stochastische Methoden zur Quantifizierung von versicherungstechnischen Risiken und Kreditrisiken” (“Stochastic methods for quantifying technical underwriting risks and credit risks”), and Wiltrud Weidner of the University of Ulm, for her dissertation entitled “Modelling and Management of non-linear dependencies – an application for stress testing”.

 

On 6 May 2010 in Zurich, Switzerland, the management of SCOR presented the SCOR Fellowship award to Philipp Arbenz, a PhD student at ETH (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich) and the award’s first recipient. The Actuarial Fellowship Selection Committee, which was also present during the ceremony, was composed of Paul Embrechts (ETH), Phillipp Keller (Deloitte), Damir Filipovic (EPFL), Shaun Wang (Georgia State University), Jean-Luc Besson (former Chief Risk Officer of SCOR), Tony Neghaiwi (Chief Pricing Actuary of SCOR Global P&C), Philippe Trainar (SCOR Chief Risk Officer) and Michel Dacorogna (SCOR Deputy Chief Risk Officer).

SCOR Switzerland promotes the bond between academic research and corporate practice in Switzerland, having created the SCOR Fellowship in March 2009, an academic program committed to advanced research in Actuarial Science/Mathematical Finance.