Maryellen Coggins is helping policymakers throughout the United States do the math needed to understand risk.
Coggins is a managing director for risk and capital management services at PwC. She's also the new president of the American Academy of Actuaries.
Actuaries formed the academy in 1965. The academy serves as a vehicle that actuaries can use to help federal, state and local officials with activities such as keeping Social Security solvent and ensuring that public employee pension plans will have enough resources to pay the benefits promised.
Via email, we asked Coggins a set of questions that touch both on her professional knowledge and on what she does off the clock.
1. What market indicator, industry statistic, regulatory change or advisor trend are you watching most closely right now and why?
There's a lot going on in the public policy arena.
Medicare's Hospital Insurance Trust Fund is projected to be exhausted in 2026, and whether and how that is addressed would have important implications.
Participants in multiemployer pension plans, especially those that are financially distressed, may want to stay apprised of if and how the new special financial assistance program being implemented by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation affects their plans.
Insurers are increasingly being asked to disclose the potential financial impacts of climate change, and cyber and wildfire risks and insurance coverages are in the spotlight due to the events of 2021.
There's growing focus at different levels of government on how to address racial and other disparities or inequities, including the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' (NAIC) comprehensive data collection effort on insurance inequities — an effort that the academy is assisting with.
A new risk-rating program for the National Flood Insurance Program could affect flood insurance premiums, up or down.
2. Who or what critical source of information do you track, or follow online, to keep up with this or other trends?
