OCCA Scholarship Info Session

March 2026

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OCCA Scholarship Committee 2026

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Austin Do, Fatir Siddiqui, Koonj Nisha,

Prerna Lohana, Mohit Aneel, Veronica Li

Scholarship Committee

Fatir Siddiqui, FCAS

Organization: Zurich Canada

Field: Commercial Insurance Pricing

Position: Senior Actuarial Analyst

Projects: Programs/Large Account Pricing

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E-mail: fatir.siddiqui@zurich.com

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Scholarship Committee

Koonj Nisha

Organization: Co-operators

Field: Commercial and Farm Pricing

Position: Actuarial Analyst

Projects: Pricing Reviews, Vendor Analysis�

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� E-mail: koonj.nisha@cooperators.ca

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Scholarship Committee

Veronica Li, ACAS

Organization: Aviva Canada

Field: Commercial Pricing

Position: Team Lead

Projects: Pricing System Transformation, P&C Pricing Review �

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� E-mail: veronica.li@aviva.com

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Scholarship Committee

Austin Do

Organization: Intact Financial Corporation

Field: Data Science, Predictive Analytics

Position: Actuarial Analyst

Projects: Commercial/Specialty Lines ML Rating, Pricing Optimization�

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� E-mail: austin.do@intact.net

Scholarship Committee

Mohit Aneel

Organization: Allstate Canada Group

Field: Provincial Product Analytics

Position: Actuarial Analyst

Projects: Performance Monitoring, Growth Analytics�

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� E-mail: moaneel@allstate.ca

Scholarship Committee

Prerna Lohana

Organization: Allstate Canada Group

Field: Atlantics Auto Pricing

Position: Actuarial Analyst

Projects: Auto Pricing Analytics & Modelling, Rate Filings�

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� E-mail: plohana@allstate.ca

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Outline

• What is OCCA?
• What is an Actuary?
• Why be an Actuary?
• What skills are needed to be an Actuary?
• How do you become an Actuary?
• What do Property & Casualty Actuaries do?
• Trends in the P&C Industry

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Outline

• What is OCCA?
• What is an Actuary?
• Why be an Actuary?
• What skills are needed to be an Actuary?
• How do you become an Actuary?
• What do Property/Casualty Actuaries do?
• Trends in the P&C Industry

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Ontario Conference of Casualty Actuaries (OCCA)

An organization of 800+ P&C Actuaries in Ontario

200+ ACAS & FCAS

Promote professional education & networking in the actuarial community

2 meetings (Spring + Fall) & occasional social events

OCCA Scholarship Program

Scholarship Eligibility

The student must be:

• currently enrolled at a University in Ontario
• enrolled in an Actuarial Science Program for the 2025 - 2026 Academic Year
• demonstrates interest in the P&C industry and scholastic achievement

Up to five $1000 scholarships

OCCA Scholarship Program

Include the following in your application:

1. Your Resume

2. A Short 150 to 250-word essay on:�What problem do you want to solve as a P&C actuary and how would you use your skills and strengths to solve it?

3. Official or Unofficial Transcript (showing the most current completed academic year at a minimum)

To apply:

Email your application to scholarship.occa@gmail.com

(Subject: OCCA Scholarship 2026 [FULL NAME, University])

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OCCA Scholarship Program

Deadline to Apply: April 1, 2026

• Selected recipients will be notified by April 24, 2026
• Selected candidates will be invited to attend the 2026 OCCA Spring Conference on May 8, 2026

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More information can be found on your Actuarial Club’s website

Outline

• What is the OCCA?
• What is an Actuary?
• Why be an Actuary?
• What skills are needed to be an Actuary?
• How do you become an Actuary?
• What do Property/Casualty Actuaries do?
• Trends in the P&C Industry

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What is an Actuary?

Where Actuaries Work

Outline

• What is the OCCA?
• What is an Actuary?
• Why be an Actuary?
• What skills are needed to be an Actuary?
• How do you become an Actuary?
• What do Property/Casualty Actuaries do?
• Trends in the P&C Industry

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Why be an Actuary?

Overall, Actuarial is a highly ranked profession.

• Actuary is rated the #8 business job according to 2023 US Job News
• Actuaries also have the lowest divorce rate out of all occupations (but correlation ≠ causation)

Competitive Salaries

Source: OCCA Salary Survey 2023

Outline

• What is the OCCA?
• What is an Actuary?
• Why be an Actuary?
• What skills are needed to be an Actuary?
• How do you become an Actuary?
• What do Property/Casualty Actuaries do?
• Trends in the P&C Industry

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What Skills are Needed?

• Keen analytical, project management and problem-solving skills
• Good business sense
• Solid communication skills (oral & written)
• Strong computer skills
• Knowledge of math and finance

Outline

• What is the OCCA?
• What is an Actuary?
• Why be an Actuary?
• What skills are needed to be an Actuary?
• How do you become an Actuary?
• What do Property/Casualty Actuaries do?
• Trends in the P&C Industry

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Actuarial Certification Organizations

Primary focus on

Property and Casualty (non-life &

non-health insurance

products)

Traditional focus on

life, health and

pensions

Qualifications for Canadian actuaries

Specifically (Life or P&C)

CAS Exam Roadmap

CAS P&C Actuarial Essentials Program�Available Now

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CIA Pathways

Study Benefits

• Paid Study Time (10-20 study days are common)
• Raises or bonuses for each exam ($2,000 - $5,000 / 3-5% range)
• Company pays for exam materials, seminars, exam fees, etc.

Salaries for FCAS vs. FSA

Used with permission from Ezra Penland Actuarial Recruitment (http://www.ezrapenland.com/salary/)

Outline

• What is the OCCA?
• What is an Actuary?
• Why be an Actuary?
• What skills are needed to be an Actuary?
• How do you become an Actuary?
• What do Property/Casualty Actuaries do?
• Trends in the P&C Industry

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What do Property/Casualty Actuaries Do?

• Ratemaking
• Loss Reserving
• Predictive Modeling
• Reinsurance Evaluation
• Enterprise Risk Management

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Ratemaking / Pricing

• Are current rates meeting our objectives?
• Are some classes performing better or worse than others?
• How do driving patterns influence risk of loss?
• How does an insured’s loss experience influence its premium?
• How does price sensitivity enter into loss cost projections?

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Loss Reserving

• What is the company’s unpaid claim liability?
• Best estimate, central estimate, key assumptions
• What is the probability distribution of unpaid claims?
• Role with Audit Committee for governance (management influence on amounts booked, independence of actuarial function)

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Predictive Modelling

• Create models for analyzing profitability, competitiveness, and retention (using GLMs and machine learning models)
• Determine actionable insights from these models for use in pricing insurance
• Collaborate with stakeholders to implement insights
• Maintain and monitor the performance of predictive models

Reinsurance

• (Insurer) What are risk/reward trade-offs related to different reinsurance structures?
• (Reinsurer) Pricing and reserving issues, but with much less data.

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Enterprise Risk Management

• Enterprise-wide view of risk that allows insurers to identify, quantify, and manage risk on a more holistic basis
• Risk identification and related management and mitigation
• ERM integration into governance, strategy and decision-making
• Board and Audit Committee responsibilities

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Many Paths to Success

Outline

• What is the OCCA?
• What is an Actuary?
• Why be an Actuary?
• What skills are needed to be an Actuary?
• How do you become an Actuary?
• What do Property/Casualty Actuaries do?
• Trends in the P&C Industry

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Many Trends Affect Our Practice

• Internet of things and “big data”

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• Increasingly sophisticated predictive models

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• Emerging risk, terrorism

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• Globalization, international businesses and risks, such as global instability

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• Changes in the regulatory environment

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• Vehicle automation

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• Social media, healthcare

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• Drones, cyber liability, the aging population

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CATs

Source: Google Images

Source: Insurance Bureau of Canada

“The summer of 2024 stands out as the most destructive season in Canadian history for insured losses due to wildfires, floods and hailstorms. In just two months, July and August, four catastrophic weather events resulted in over $7 billion in insured losses and more than a quarter of a million insurance claims – 50% more than Canadian insurers typically receive in an entire year.”

Source: Insurance Bureau of Canada

“Severe weather events continue to intensify. Two decades ago, insured losses seldom surpassed $500 million in a year. Today, annual costs exceeding $1 billion have become the norm. This shift demands that we fundamentally rethink how we build, plan and restore communities across our country,” said Celyeste Power, President and CEO, Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC). “

Generative AI

GenAI in Insurance

Can GenAI replace underwriters or claim adjusters, or even actuaries?

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Currently…No.

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GenAI and AGI: Trends

As of early 2026, it has been approximately 3 years since generative AI became a widely used tool.

• It is still unclear what sort of future has started to emerge.
• Studies have shown organizations have not realized positive return on investment (ROI) on the vast majority of GenAI pilots.
• However, currently, a lot of the ROI is in the value of learning and today’s learnings may enable tomorrow’s breakthroughs.

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GenAI in Insurance

CIA has identified several practical uses of GenAI for actuaries due to its promising ability in various areas to make work done by actuaries easier.

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Semantic search�Enhancing management and searching capabilities using large datasets

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Summarization�Summarizing complex reports and communications, drawing useful insights

New Content Generation�Generating personalized content, such as communications, financial advice

Translation and Code Generation

Facilitating language translation and converting natural language into code

Source: CIA (“Revolutionizing Actuarial Work with Generative AI: A Glimpse into the Future”, November 2024)�

GenAI in Insurance: Examples

Underwriting

• Quote segmentation
• Initial Risk Assessment
• Contact Center

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Claims

• Chatbot

Prioritization

• Summarization
• Claim assignments

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Actuarial

• Model development and scenario simulations
• Data management and analysis
• Analysis report generation

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Other/General

• Personalized learning tool
• Smart meeting and transcriptions
• Smart planners

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• These are some examples of how genAI is already integrated into the daily tasks of professionals in their departments.
• The adoption by actuaries and other experts is going to play a key role in how effective these models are in the future.�

Source: CIA (“Revolutionizing Actuarial Work with Generative AI: A Glimpse into the Future”, November 2024)�

Cyber Risk

Cyber Risk

Cyber Risk covers physical and non-physical impacts of the following:

The impacts can be non-physical, like data encryption, or physical, such as damage to factories or bodily injury.

Cyber Risk: Emerging Risks

As global interconnectivity and reliance on AI expands, the need for data centers and digital infrastructure rises, contributing to greater climate risk.

• Similarly, by posing a threat to the physical infrastructure of those digital assets, climate events enhance cyber vulnerability, creating a cyclical pattern of risk.
• The global shift to green energy sources like wind, solar, and nuclear, while essential to mitigating climate risk, can introduce new digitized infrastructure that remains vulnerable to remote cyberattacks.
• The rising homogeneity of OT operating systems makes attacks on OT and AI systems more scalable than in the past, leading to greater potential for widespread blackouts. 

Cyber Risk: Potential Solutions

There are various approaches being explored to mitigate the rising cyber risk:

User-Based Insurance (UBI)

User-Based Insurance (UBI)

When actuaries price traditional auto insurance policies, they are making assumptions with limited information. They make assumptions on:

• The amount of driving (mileage)
• Who will be driving (age, gender)
• Where will they be driving (exposure to different risk areas)
• How will they be driving (driving habits)

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They use rating variables based on various parameters to determine the price. Better driving/Low Risk means Better Price. But without the real information available, we do the ratemaking process with our eyes shut.

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What if we could open our eyes by seeing through the eyes of our drivers using modern data from a digital lens? 

User-Based Insurance (UBI)

The development of telematics has evolved to provide a spectrum of data points and information available to improve the ratemaking process for auto insurance.

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• Telematics can be used to track driving behavior such as speed, braking, phone use and other characteristics to personalize auto insurance rates for safer, lower mileage drivers.
• Compared to traditional insurance, it more accurately rewards good behavior with lower premiums and sources more datapoints for better segmentation in pricing.
• Overall, the use of telematics helps drivers learn how to learn using real-time data and improve road safety.
• Telematics can enhance fairness into auto insurance models.

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Auto Insurance: Electric Vehicles

Auto Sector: Electric Vehicles

The government of Canada has set a new auto strategy to strengthen greenhouse gas-emission standards. This is expected to result in 75% of new cars sold in Canada being electric by 2035.

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Since 2019, due to incentives, increased supply of new EV models and the infrastructure projects for expanding charging stations across the country, the adoption rates of electric vehicles has been on the rise.

• As of Q3 2025, around 9.4% of all new vehicles registered were zero-emission vehicles.
• With a launch of a new $2.3 billion program to incentivize the purchase of electric vehicles, we can expect the auto sector to change.

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But what does this mean for auto insurance?

Auto Sector: Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles can have a different risk profile compared to vehicles with an internal combustion engine.

• MyChoice’s analysis of 60,000 Ontario auto quotes shows EV prices vary by over $1,300/year depending on model.
• EVs can be more expensive to insure because of sophisticated parts, battery costs, labor costs and increased risks such as fire, battery damage etc.
• While a lot of these differences depend on current models and global-supply chain issues, the insurance cost can represent a significant cost of ownership of an electric vehicle.

Auto Sector: Electric Vehicles

• As EV adoption rates grow and the supply chains mature, insurers will have to adapt their pricing models to the evolved risk profile of electric vehicles.

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• To stay competitive, actuaries and underwriters will need to use models trained specifically on EV data to price risks more accurately and competitively.

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• Actuaries will also need to analyze and understand how the features of EVs introduce new risks impacting the frequency and severity of losses.

Blooket Review

Let’s do a quick review of today’s session using a blooket game!

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Follow instructions on the next page to join…

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Credit and Feedback

• Special thanks to Casualty Actuarial Society, who provided much of the presentation material.
• Any feedback about this presentation is welcomed and please send to: scholarship.occa@gmail.com

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You are invited…

join online today at CASstudentcentral.org

Thank you!