Open Actuarial¶
Introduction¶
Open Actuarial is a group for the promotion of open approaches to actuarial problems.
This organisation aims to:
- Identify the main areas where open tools can benefit actuarial analyses
- Support and publicise existing open tools that can help actuarial analysis
- Aid in the development of new tools, especially where gaps in the available toolset exist
- Educate the actuarial community on the availability, benefits and occasional downsides of open tools
Getting Started¶
Resources on how to get started with programming.
- Getting started with Python
- Getting started with R (TODO)
Discussion and Contributing¶
Areas for focus¶
Below are some of the areas where the actuarial community can benefit from open tools:
Core statistical tools¶
- core probabilistic functions ala Actuar including blended distributions e.g. mixed exponential, mixed pareto, etc
- curve fitting
- dependency modelling and parameterisation
- data manipulation and charting tools
Domain specific data dictionaries and datasets (real and dummy)¶
- Standardised data dictionaries/glossaries
- Tools for the transformation of data from formats typically used in administration systems to those suitable for analysis
- Real datasets
- Dummy datasets (useful where either real data is unavailable for commercial reasons and for ensuring that actuarial analyses work appropriately)
Statistical analysis¶
- tools for generalised linear regression, mixed models, survival analysis, bayesian analysis, machine learning
Reporting tools¶
- Web based, pdf-able reports (to improve on Excel based reporting)
- web apps
- Notebooks
- Web based presentations
Development and production environments¶
Applying DevOps principles to Actuarial work:
- Collaboration and Version control (Git, TFS, Mecurical, SVN)
- Testing (unit tests, speed tests, test-driven development)
- Continuous integration
- Push button deployments
- Development, Testing and Production environments (virtualisation and containers)
- ‘Big Data’ architectures
Domain specific tools and models¶
- General Insurance/Property & Casualty
- Life Insurance
- Investments