Making the Profession Fit for the Future

The DAV wishes to tackle the challenges and opportunities arising from these developments together with its members. To this end, it has developed a future agenda in which it presents its vision for the years to come. In the coming months it wishes to develop this vision in an intensive dialogue with its members. In a wide-ranging engagement campaign centred around the portal www.davzukunftsagenda.de the DAV’s members are invited to contribute to shaping the Future Agenda. The aim is to make the DAV future proof as a professional association, to ensure it keeps pace with the latest trends and developments and continues to play an active part in shaping the profession to enable it to appeal to future generations too.

Future Agenda of the Deutsche Aktuarvereinigung e.V. 

1. Our claim: where we are today 

In the course of the more than 100-year history of our predecessor organisations we have always guaranteed the quality of actuarial activity, and nowadays we have the important position of being the professional body representing the 6,000 or so actuaries in Germany. 

We have been actively involved in shaping countless change processes and have always been open to change. Examples of this are the founding of the DAV as a professional body accountable for the professional title of Appointed Actuary, introduced in 1994, or the issue of risk management, which we integrated into the foundation modules of our education and training programme in 2006, and later established as a core part of our curriculum with the additional qualification to achieve CERA (Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary) status. 

Nowadays we find ourselves in times of accelerated change. Digitalisation in particular has transformed and diversified the actuarial profession in recent years – on the one hand, greater automation has meant that certain standard tasks are no longer required; on the other, new professional fields have developed that deal with data-based and mathematical and statistical tasks in the fields of insurance and finance. Moreover, our profession is gaining increasing societal relevance and responsibility because of global challenges such as climate change, demographic developments or the ongoing low interest rate environment. Insurance and finance companies, too, are facing constant change and are having to adapt to a new environment by means of agile ways of working and optimised processes, for example.

We don’t want to simply follow these developments; we want to contribute to shaping the change and actively driving it forward. We wish to be and to remain the profession for experts in mathematics and statistics. In order to be in demand among employers we have to embrace the changes in the economy and make ourselves fit for the future. 

To this end, we wish to reflect these changes in our structures, too, especially within our education and training system. Given the dynamic changes on the labour market and in academic education, we need to develop our profession in a future-proof manner to ensure that it can survive in the future and that we can continue the success story of the DAV and, especially, the actuarial community. 

2. Our Target: Where we want to be

The DAV of the future is …

… always up-to-date in terms of relevant issues in politics, economy and society as well as when it comes to methodological know-how. This is what gives it its reputation as a competent partner for all relevant stakeholders and makes it the first point of contact for all actuarial questions.

The expertise of the DAV’s members …

… is renowned throughout the industry. A title from the DAV is a guarantee, across the whole industry, of a high-level specialist qualification that has been awarded with strict quality standards and with a great deal of awareness of responsibility and accountability. 

The Profession of Actuary….

… is perceived as attractive, diverse and offering many opportunities. Many up-and-coming talents want to join this established community of actuaries and reap the benefits of developing themselves, both personally and technically.

We‘re backing the future! You can count on us.

Since being founded we have guaranteed high-level qualifications thanks to our demanding education and training system, and we have thus laid the foundations for the technically sound practice of our profession and the personal development of our members. This perception of ourselves enables us to approach and tackle the trends of our times with confidence and should continue to be the standard by which our actions are measured. 

At the heart of this is the title of “DAV Actuary”, which we will maintain in its current form as the kitemark for our profession and which we wish to strengthen as a wide-ranging qualification with the furthest-reaching overview of the insurance and financial industry. Our latest member survey underlined once again the significance of this title.

This survey also indicated the desire among our members for in-depth and inter-disciplinary exchange of knowledge as well as technical specialisation. Many respondents also expressed the wish that the DAV would have stronger representation vis a vis relevant external stakeholders.

Against this background we have thus set ourselves three strategic focuses:

1. We want to position the DAV as a future-oriented and modern professional association, to raise our profile and to represent the interests of our members vis a vis relevant external stakeholders such as industry associations, employers, auditing companies and government ministries. 
2. We want to continue to guarantee our commitment to quality and ensure that the DAV’s tried-and-tested quality standards apply to all actuarial activities in the insurance and financial industry.
3. We want to further develop the DAV into an integrative professional association that is open to new technical and methodological developments in the areas of climate change, data science or agility, for example.

In short: It is our aim to integrate the required know-how into our organisation in a timely manner and to have a marked influence on quality standards in all potential fields of activity. This will enable us to ensure that the high quality guidelines, which are the benchmark of our work as actuaries, will also apply to new and emerging fields of activity. This will not only make our profession fit for the future, it will also enable the DAV’s future technical and specialist development. 

3. Our solution: how we can get there

In order to meet these aims we have defined the following fields of activity:

1. We see the capacity to deal with relevant new issues and integrate new competences into our association using our tried-and-tested quality guidelines as core pre-conditions for making our association future-proof. This affects all the DAV’s activities, both in education and training and in advocacy. In order to make our education and training system accordingly flexible, we intend to amend our statutes; this amendment is to be put to the vote in our Members Assembly in 2023.
2. The next generation is our future. Therefore we intend to step up our support for graduates from mathematical / statistical disciplines and provide them with the necessary space and means to develop their competences in the actuarial world.
3. We want to place our subject matter more intensively in the (specialist) public and promote exchange and networking with relevant external stakeholders from industry, politics and academia. To this end, we intend to develop appropriate forms of dialogue and to position the DAV accordingly. 
4. As a professional body we want to be organised in a modern fashion and enable transparent processes for mutual exchange of ideas and knowledge. The new remote voting procedure, which has already been approved by the Members Assembly, is a significant first step in this context. 
5. Furthermore we wish to develop new forms of working for us in an honorary capacity so as to facilitate active participation in the Association.
6. A future-proof DAV also needs a modern look. Therefore we intend to review the DAV’s corporate design in line with this new image of ourselves. 

We consider integrating new professional profiles and issues to be one of our core tasks. It will give us a great opportunity to expand our competences, learn  new methods and enlarge our network. Opening up our education and training to new target groups will strengthen the structure of our membership both quantitatively but primarily qualitatively, too, as well as providing new methodological know-how. Moreover, as a result of the amendments to our statutes, we will adapt the conditions for gaining specialised titles / status, which will mean that these can be acquired independently of the title / status of DAV Actuary. Our key brand – the title of DAV Actuary -- will in future thus have an even stronger position as the central and over-arching qualification of the Association. Our current additional titles -- but also potential future titles -- will no longer be seen as additional qualifications but rather as specialised education and training within the DAV. 

This will enable the DAV to tap new potential – especially in areas such as data science and artificial intelligence (AI). As our survey has shown, our members want more capacity for education and training especially in these areas. At the same time, by opening up new fields of competence  we are creating more incentives for the next generation and can give them more support -- especially in terms of these new areas which are so relevant for the future. A DAV that is broader-based in terms of subject matter can actively tackle more issues and give a reasoned opinion on these issues. Making the Association more fit for the future in this way will benefit all our members.

The intended amendment to our statutes will mean the following in detail: 

Expanding our education and training system and making it more flexible not only better reflects the reality of the labour market but it will also convince lateral entrants with technical qualifications of the benefits of education and training in the field of actuarial science.

Anyone having the right to use the title “DAV Actuary” will still have to have met all existing requirements and have passed all the relevant examinations. However, the strict link between membership and the right to use the title will no longer exist, which will thus create two types of membership: 

• Full membership without the right to use the title 
  After passing a specific number of examinations (six examinations + completion of two mandatory seminars) candidates are awarded membership of the DAV but may not use the title “DAV Actuary”. This type of membership need not necessarily be acquired in order to be able to complete the education and training to become a member with the right to use the title of DAV Actuary. 

• Full membership with the right to use the title 
  Full members have the right to use the designation “DAV Actuary” if they meet the requirements of the relevant examination regulations and the rules of professional practice governing their membership. Thus, this title will remain the kitemark for actuarial education and training since its quality and scope will remain unchanged. The specialised qualifications with their corresponding titles will be organised according to the respective requirements.

4. Our shared journey: how we will reach our goal

This draft of the DAV’s Future Agenda is only the first of many measures by means of which we want to steer and shape our change process together. On this journey, we will be dependent on you as a member of the DAV to be actively involved and to contribute your ideas. Your work and expertise will contribute to making our organisation fit for the future. 
At present we are still at the beginning – in an initial phase we wish to create transparency and present our proposals to you. So that everyone will have the opportunity to be involved, we have planned, or in some cases already implemented, various channels for engagement:

• Members survey in summer 2021:
  Your active participation contributed many expectations and proposals that we have considered in our Future Agenda, and also plan to integrate into the further process. Moreover, your responses have shown us that you would like to be more closely involved in decision-making processes.

• Autumn Congress 2021:
  At our new event format “DAV internal”, we introduced this Future Agenda and answered some initial questions. You can view the video as a recorded session in the Members area of our website.

• Campaign website  www.davzukunftsagenda.de
  Please share your opinions and comments on the Future Agenda so that we can include them in the further process. The final proposal will be presented at our Autumn Congress in 2022. 

In a second phase, we will start a dialogue with you about current developments in our profession and will discuss their significance for us as an organisation. From the beginning of next year, we will provide a virtual consultation meeting in which we can answer your questions personally and discuss issues together with you. We will be pleased to arrange further discussion formats as per your proposals. Our campaign website will also ensure that we are in constant contact with one another -- the website will keep you constantly up to date with all information concerning our strategy process. Moreover, we would like to get in touch with external stakeholders, too, so that we can find out about their expectations of us and of our association. 

In phase three, we will finally create the necessary conditions for integrating new subject areas and competences into our Association. At our Members Assembly in spring 2023 we intend to vote on amending our statutes in line with the premises outlined above. We are drafting a proposal for this amendment, while taking into account your feedback about the Future Agenda, with professional legal support.

Finally, in the fourth phase, we plan to present ourselves and our vision for the future of the DAV and of our profession to the specialist public and attract new members. At the same time we want to raise awareness of the DAV and of the role it plays in society, which is so relevant for the future. 

With diversity, competence and appreciation into the future – together with you, we want to take up the challenges and leverage the opportunities for our profession. We are keen to hear your proposals, ideas, and also your criticism, about how we can shape the DAV in the years to come as a modern professional body with a claim to be fit for the future. We look forward to you joining us on the next stages of our shared journey.