New Insurees, Next Actuaries (NINA)

Scientific project

The insurance sector is being disrupted by fundamental trends. Technological, regulatory, societal and environmental developments are all colliding and forcing insurers to take up new challenges. New models and their algorithms, connected objects and the information they generate, computing capacities, mass data processing and new approaches to artificial intelligence are enabling us to rethink insurance, its scope of intervention, prevention, distribution and advice. All these changes affect the behaviour of policyholders and insurers, and change the access and consumption of insurance products and services. But they also allow for increasing individualisation, which makes the insurance business more complex.  

As partners since 2010, BNP Paribas Cardif and the SAF laboratory at ISFA first studied the new role of models in the management of insurance companies. The DAMI Chair then took over from these studies by focusing on the use of models and data in insurance. Following on from this work, the NINA Chair of Excellence “New Insurees, Next Actuaries” aims to study new actuarial techniques to make insurance more accessible. It seeks to analyse the impact of technological transformations on insurance and the underlying actuarial models. This chair develops research activities around the evolution of the insurer’s promise and the responsibility of actuaries with regard to this commitment.

This chair places the actuary at the centre of a reflection on the insurance of the future. The objective is to develop the best models while maintaining a balance between individualisation and mutualisation necessary for optimal risk management. The chair is particularly interested in modelling the behaviour of policyholders, with an approach directly linked to the growing diversity of data collected through the digitalisation of interactions, social networks and connected objects. At the same time, it strives to anticipate these contracts of the future, and to take into account the evolution of knowledge of biometric risks and medical advances.

Making insurance more accessible also means making it clearer, simpler and more understandable. The NINA Chair focuses on communication about insurance in the broadest sense. One research area is dedicated to risk education and culture. The Chair thus contributes to the effort to popularise insurance risks and to the interpretation of model decisions and financial communication.  

The work carried out will shed light on the role of insurers and the responsibility of actuaries in a rapidly changing society.