
Innovations in Risk, Insurance and Superannuation
Working with the financial services industry and policymakers to adapt industry practice, regulation and public policy to traditional and emerging risks.
The IRIS Hub will serve as a bridge between UNSW, the insurance and superannuation industries, regulators and public policy.
Standing at the forefront of risk, insurance, and superannuation research, the IRIS Hub will create forward-looking and tech-driven approaches using advanced data and actuarial analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), field studies and experimental surveys to address pressing industry and policy challenges. The Hub will conduct cutting-edge research under three themes (Risk, Insurance and Superannuation), making contributions to the UN sustainable development goals.
The changing environment is significantly altering the financial landscape of the insurance industry, while a dominating driving force for this is climate change. The economic consequences of climate change propagate through physical, social, and financial channels, constituting a rapidly changing and highly uncertain external environment for the insurance industry. This theme first considers quantifying the impacts of climate change on insurance and then proposes an insurance approach to mitigating climate risk.
Planning for and financing retirement are inherently complex tasks. While financial and health concerns are a major part of retirement decisions, retirement outcomes are also affected by behavioral factors and complexity/inflexibility of retirement products. This theme focuses on issues related to wellbeing in retirement through optimal utilization of the entirety of household wealth (housing, financial assets, and superannuation), as well as new retirement product development and behavioral barriers to optimal choices and decisions.
The insurance and superannuation industries, like many other industries, are facing a digital transformation with the advance of Big Data and AI/ML techniques. However, the nature of these two industries is such that the consideration of uncertainty, interpretability, fairness, and privacy is key for the successful deployment of AI/ML solutions. Thus, this theme focuses on exploiting the synergies between traditional actuarial methods, modern AI/ML techniques, and new data sources to develop innovative tools tailored for insurance, risk management, and retirement problems.
The School of Risk and Actuarial Studies is looking to hire a research assistance to contribute to the development of research in the Innovations in Risk, Insurance and Superannuation (IRIS) Knowledge Hub. The IRIS Hub serves as a bridge between UNSW, the insurance and superannuation industries, regulators and public policy.
This position relates to a new project under the Superannuation theme which will investigate new strategies to enhance awareness, interest, understanding and take-up of life annuities in Australia.
Address:
School of Risk and Actuarial Studies
Level 6, Business School Building
University of New South Wales
Sydney NSW 2052
Email: iris@unsw.edu.au