Thinking Ahead

How actuarial principles enhance perspective and improve outcomes. Thinking Ahead is a series of thought provoking observations on factors to consider at the intersections of data and decision. A collaboration dedicated to informed decision-making...getting ready for what comes next...risk management and emergency planning that works.

Meeting Covid 19
Financial Challenges

On June 1, 2020, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) issued a letter in support of “…the development of a framework to help deal with the national debt once we have moved past the immediate health and economic crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.” 

COVID-19 Mortality Rates

Scholars trying to determine the number of deaths caused by a pandemic look at both the proportion of deaths from novel coronavirus relative to the total number of people diagnosed with the disease, normally referred to as the case fatality rate (CFR), and the proportion of deaths among all infected person including asymptomatic and other undiagnosed infections, recognized as the infection fatality rate (IFR). Final numbers for both CFR and IFR can only be determined, and even then only estimated, once a pandemic has completely passed.

COVID-19: Better Informed Decision-Making is a Necessity, Not an Option

As death tolls rise, economies flounder and the future hangs in the balance, public and private sector decision-makers - and their constituents, investors and employees - are reminded almost daily that COVID-19 has made the personal pain and societal penalties for decisions that do not work increasingly unacceptable.

Pre-Pandemic Challenges and Opportunities

At the end of 2019, political and policy concerns about three social insurance issues - access to and the cost of health care; the solvency of Social Security, and the underfunding of large public pension funds - were all making the news.

The Need for an Informed Response to National Recovery

In mid-August 2020 the number of daily COVID-19 deaths was still rising again in a number of states, most notably, according to the news media, in states that had begun to "open-up" more rapidly than others. Coverage reflected a narrative established early on in the pandemic coverage suggesting that managing the virus would require peoples and governments everywhere to choose between the loss of lives and economic losses.

The Need for Better Risk Assessment and Managment

Given the volume of information generated over the past decade and the prestigious body of "warners," it seems not only fair, but necessary to ask why we were so unprepared when COVID-19 hit.