When History Informs the Future

nsurance is often viewed through a modern lens, but its roots stretch back thousands of years. Our cover story revisits that history, exploring how early innovations in risk sharing laid the groundwork for today’s global insurance systems and how those same principles continue to inform the future of the profession. That forward-looking lens is especially relevant in this issue, where we turn from history to the rapidly evolving risks of today. One article examines the emerging liability landscape of AI agents, highlighting how autonomous systems are already creating complex, difficult-to-underwrite exposures across cyber and professional lines. Alongside it, a firsthand interview with engineer Scott Shambaugh offers a human perspective on these same technologies, illustrating how agentic behavior can manifest in unexpected and sometimes harmful ways in real-world communities. Together, these pieces underscore a familiar theme: While the tools may change, the challenge of understanding, managing, and assigning risk remains at the heart of the actuarial profession.

We bring you five session recaps from Ratemaking, Product, and Modeling seminar, held March 16-18 in Chicago, including sessions on navigating risk with machine learning; professionalism in climate-driven catastrophe risk; leveraging insurtech now that the hype is over; comparing actuarial pricing across the globe; and generative and agentic AI, regulation, and the actuary. We also delve into the brand work the CAS has been doing, telling the story of the philosophy behind the endeavor. Learn about the evolution of the brand and see the new look firsthand.

We conclude with a technical contribution that reflects the profession’s continued evolution in practice. Revisiting a foundational tool in liability pricing, the authors introduce a modified Riebesell form for increased limit factors—offering a more flexible approach for modeling risks that are not as heavily tailed as traditional assumptions suggest. By refining a long-standing actuarial method, the article highlights how even well-established frameworks must adapt to better reflect real-world experience, reinforcing the ongoing balance between theory and application that defines actuarial work.

Enjoy the issue!