Automotive telematics and usage-based insurance. The Internet of Things and Big Data. The cognitive era has indeed arrived in the general insurance (property-casualty) industry. The challenge for insurance companies is figuring out how to intelligently leverage all the fresh data, not only to effectively manage the escalating and ever-morphing risks posed to personal and intellectual property, but also to stay a step ahead in what is a highly competitive, global general insurance market.

The key to meeting that challenge is predictive analytics — and an actuarial force that knows how and when to use them, according to Anthony Cappelletti, FSA, FCAS, FCIA, general insurance staff fellow at the Society of Actuaries (SOA).

"Claims settlement, ratemaking, fraud detection, loss reserving, operations, underwriting — there are so many different ways insurers can use predictive modeling and Big Data to be more profitable and competitive," he says. "Actuaries who understand predictive analytics — how to design systems, develop them and interpret their output — are the ones who are going to add value to the insurers that employ them."