At the recent Winter Dinner the 2019 NZSA Award winners and the recipient of the Richard Bruynel Research Award were announced.
NZSA Awards
The NZSA Awards recognise the service and contribution of members to the profession. The NZSA Awards broadly follow set criteria, as follows:
Gold award
Recognises an individual who
- through their volunteer activities, contributes significantly to the Society’s key strategic programs and/or
- positively enhances the reputation of the profession
Distinguished Service Award
Recognises the outstanding contribution of a member who has been an active volunteer with the Society for more than five years and has contributed to two or more areas of volunteering activities
Young volunteer achievement
Recognised the outstanding contributions made by volunteers less than five years post-qualification and are judged based on the nominated applicants’ commitment to excellence in their chosen field of volunteering, leadership and determination to advance the profession.
John Smeed, President said “Whilst the Awards Committee was unanimous in their recommendations, I am sure there are also other worthy nominees out there, and I ask you all to make sure you nominate these people for next year’s awards.”
The recipients for 2019 are:
Young Volunteer Achievement Award – June Kuan
June presented a passionate, impactful conference session on climate change, and is a member of the General Insurance Practice Committee.
Gold Award – Christian Barrington
Christian is a long-time member and current convenor of the General Insurance Practice Committee. In this role he has led NZSA’s efforts around catastrophe risk, including leading a task force which has developed thoughtful and viable ways to upskill actuaries in this area. Christian also presented an excellent framework at the Conference, which will be an excellent reference for members going forward. Christian is also a well-respected representative of the NZSA with ICNZ.
Distinguished Service Award – Charlie Cahn
Charlie has been a keen supporter and work horse for the Society, as well as having held a number of prominent actuarial roles. Charlie’s contributions have included the Life Insurance Practice Committee, Council, and as a member of the task force which produced our current Disciplinary Scheme.
Distinguished Service Award – John Smith
John has been a keen and frequent volunteer for NZSA, including a long stint as Secretary, and the NZSA representative on the IAA’s Insurance Accounting Committee. He is currently convenor of the Professional Standards Committee.
Richard Bruynel Research Prize
The Richard Bruynel Research Prize for the most original and innovative paper presented at the 2018 New Zealand Society of Actuaries Conference is awarded to Jeremy Holmes, Marcella Lau and Aaron Park for their paper An actuarial approach to modelling vehicle injuries and fatalities.
The Prize Committee commends the authors for bringing actuarial techniques to a significant public issue and showing a new way of analysing road toll data that is both robust and personally helpful to reader. The paper is well-researched and presents its findings in a number of interesting graphics. We look forward to seeing this work make an impact for the NZ public.
The Committee also noted Christian Barrington’s excellent paper on Catastrophe Risk
