CERA Education.
Over the last decade, the concept of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) has gained significant momentum in the insurance industry and beyond. This came with the recognition of risk as being something not per se to be avoided, but to be optimally exploited in the frame of a company’s risk appetite. ERM is going beyond traditional risk management in that it is holistic, and encompasses strategic risk management as well as risk culture.
Many of these developments are reflected in regulatory changes, such as the MaRisk in Germany, or the upcoming Solvency II (although these focus on policyholder protection and less on opportunities). Solvency II will require an actuarial and a risk management function in all (re-)insurance undertakings. Actuaries should see this as an opportunity to broaden their role, and to show that they are ideally equipped to carry out these tasks.
Against this backdrop, in November 2009, several actuarial associations launched the CERA credential as a global risk management designation for actuaries. CERA pursues the following goals:
- Strengthen international recognition of the actuarial profession’s enterprise risk management (ERM) expertise
- Promote the development of more actuaries internationally with training in ERM
- Present new opportunities for actuaries worldwide to use their expertise in an expanding range of areas
- Send a strong message to employers and candidates that the skill set of actuaries offers significant risk management expertise
Based on the 2011-implemented education und examination system of the German Actuarial Association, the EAA offers a series of training courses and exams (through DAV) to study for the CERA designation to all actuaries who want to deepen their knowledge in Enterprise Risk Management.
By passing this training and examination course, members of the German Actuarial Association gain their CERA designation. Members of other national actuarial associations have to get in touch with their association to check the possibilities to use the EAA route.
The Seminar ‘Processes in ERM’
This module deals with the challenges of implementing ERM Processes. It includes requirements on ERM Processes and the discussion of best practices. It will be presented how to define an organisation’s risk strategy, risk appetite, risk tolerances and limits. We discuss how business strategy influences risk strategy and show their necessary interaction. We demonstrate the close relationship between ERM and Value and Risk Based Management and show how financial and other risks influence the selection of strategy and how ERM can be appropriately imbedded in an entity’s strategic planning. We present the application of an internal risk control process. In the context of ERM reports to different stakeholders are required (management, supervisory body, regulators, public disclosure). We give an overview of the different reports and the main contents. Further we show examples of communication processes in the context of ERM. During the seminar we present case studies to discuss the main subjects.
