Notes from the 2nd Insurance Data Science conference

The second Insurance Data Science Conference at RiskLab (ETH Zurich) followed on from its first edition at Cass Business School (London) and five iterations of the R in Insurance conferences. This one-day conference was an exciting international event that brought together industry and academia in the fields of insurance and computer sciences.

This one-day conference was an exciting international event that brought together industry and academia in the fields of insurance and computer sciences.

The two keynote speakers Joachim Buhmann (Professor of ETH Zurich) and Ronald Richman (Associate Director with QED Actuaries and Consultants) shared their views of machine learning in insurance.

We had more than 30 contributed talks from industry and academia presenting the latest developments in the field of insurance data science.

A panel discussion with Sabine Betz (Swiss Association of Actuaries and EY), Jeffrey Bohn (Swiss Re) and Volker Reinthaler (AXA) discussed the future potential of this field.

This year’s edition was a huge success, for the first time we had parallel sessions allowing a bigger audience to attend the conference; and the event was sold out within a few weeks.

The RiskLab at ETH Zurich was a fantastic host. Mario Wüthrich worked tirelessly to ensure everything was well organised. He must have sent hundreds of e-mails answering questions from speakers, sponsors and delegates.

The programme included talks on statistical methods, actuarial pricing and capital modelling, the use of machine learning, cyber and catastrophe risk modelling, data workflow management and decision making.

The coffee breaks and conference dinner at Zunfthaus zur Meisen offered wonderful networking opportunities.

Materials

The presentations from this year’s event are accessible online.

Next event

The 3rd Insurance Data Science conference will take place at Cass Business School, London, 22 June 2020. Further announcement will be published on https://insurancedatascience.org.

If you would like to get/ stay in touch, please email us: info@insurancedatascience.org.

Thanks

We are grateful to our sponsors Swiss Re Institute, Swiss Association of Actuaries, Axa, Mango Solutions, Milliman, Mirai Solutions and RStudio. Without their generous support, holding this conference would not have been possible.

Furthermore, we thank the RiskLab PhD students and Faculty Administration team, who helped to make this conference a success.