Dr Fei Huang
- Senior Fellow of Advance HE (SFHEA)
- PhD, Australian National University
- MPhil, University of Hong Kong
- BSc, Xiamen University
Fei is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Risk and Actuaries Studies and Lead - Data and AI Tech at UNSW Business AI Lab. She received her BSc. in Mathematics from Xiamen University, MPhil in Actuarial Science from the University of Hong Kong, and PhD in Actuarial Studies from the Australian National University. Before joining UNSW in 2020, she was a faculty member at the Australian National University.
In her research, Fei focuses on responsible AI and data-driven decision-making, especially for the insurance industry, utilizing tools from statistics, machine learning, economics, and marketing. Her research interests include fair and non-discriminatory insurance pricing, algorithmic bias, interpretable machine learning, mortality modelling, and customer relationship management. She particularly explores ways to make insurance equitable, affordable, and sustainable in the contexts of AI and climate change. Her work has been published in leading actuarial journals. Fei has received the Carol Dolan Actuaries Summit Prize and the ASTIN Colloquium Best Paper Award for her research on anti-discrimination in insurance pricing. In 2023, she was honoured with the Actuaries Institute's Volunteer of the Year Award in the Spirit of Volunteering category and the UNSW Business School SDG Research Impact Award.
Fei teaches actuarial data science and statistical machine learning at UNSW. By collaborating with industry partners, she incorporates contemporary industry challenges into the course syllabus to offer a unique industry-engaging experience for students via Sandbox Projects. Her educational excellence has been recognized by winning the UNSW John Prescott Award for Outstanding Teaching Innovation (2022), the ANU Vice Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence in the Early Career Category (2018) and the ANU College of Business and Economics Award for Teaching Excellence in the Early Career Category (2017). Fei is a Senior Fellow of Advance HE (SFHEA).
Fei works with insurers, consulting firms, and government agencies for transformative research and education projects, covering a wide range of topics. Examples of such collaborations include mortality modelling, fairness metrics for life insurance, Interpretable and fair insurance pricing using causal models, personalised customer management, bushfire risk modelling, multi-coverage bundled insurance pricing, claims inflation forecasting, and property insurance pricing with high-cardinality features.
- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
- National Industry PhD Program Award, 2024
- Interpretable and Fair Insurance Risk Pricing using Causal Models, SOA CKER and CAS Individual Grant Competition, 2024
- Fairness Metrics for Life Insurance (with Milliman), SOA Research Grant, 2023
- UNSW Business School SDG Research Impact Award, 2023
- Bloomberg Education Excellence Award - Best Innovative Teaching Practice (with Kevin Liu, Xiao Xu, Jonathan Ziveyi, and Sherry Zhang), 2023
- Actuaries Institute's Volunteer of the Year Award - Spirit of Volunteering, 2023
- ASTIN Colloquium Best Paper Award, 2022
- Carol Dolan Actuaries Summit Prize, 2022
- UNSW John Prescott Award for Outstanding Teaching Innovation, 2022
- ANU Vice Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence in the Early Career Category, 2018
- ANU College of Business and Economics Award for Teaching Excellence in the Early Career Category, 2017
- Insurance Discrimination and Pricing Fairness in the Context of AI (and non-AI). See related papers below:
(1) The Discriminating (Pricing) Actuary (with Edward (Jed) Frees), NAAJ, 2022
(2) Anti-discrimination Insurance Pricing: Regulations, Fairness Criteria, and Models (with Xi Xin), NAAJ, 2023 (This paper won the inaugural Carol Dolan Actuaries Summit Prize and ASTIN Colloquium Best Paper Award)
(3) Welfare Implications of Fairness and Accountability for Insurance Pricing (with Hajime Shimao), 2022 - Interpretable Machine Learning
(1) Why You Should Not Trust Interpretations in Machine Learning. (with Xi Xin and Giles Hooker) - Socio-economic and Subgroup Mortality modelling
- Advanced-age mortality modelling and forecasting using extreme value theory (EVT)
(1) Modelling life tables with advanced ages: An extreme value theory approach (with Ross Maller and Ning Xu), Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, 2020 - Customer Churn Analysis
(1) Multi-State Modelling of Customer Churn (with Yumo Dong, Edward (Jed) Frees, Francis Hui), ASTIN Bulletin, 2022 (SSRN version)
Media Coverages:
- RESOLVE, December 2023, AI discrimination potential explored, by Resolve Editor Kate Tilley, Australian Insurance Law Association (AILA)
- Huang, F. 2023. If you get a genetic test, could a life insurance firm use it against you? Business Think
- Huang, F. 2023. Home insurance is on the rise. Is there an affordable solution? Business Think
- ANZIIF article 2023: How to manage bias in insurance data and algorithms.
- Actuaries Digital 2023: The 2023 Volunteer of the Year Winners Announced!
- Huang, F. and Xi Xin 2023: Anti-discrimination Insurance Pricing: Regulations, Fairness Criteria, and Models, Actuaries Digital
- Huang, F., 2022. Pricing fairness: tackling big data and COVID-19 insurance discrimination, Media Coverage by Business Think and UNSW Newsroom
- Huang, F., 2022. How insurers can mitigate the discrimination risks posed by AI, Media Coverage by IMD and Business Think
- Actuaries Digital 2022, How confident are you that your insurance pricing or underwriting models are not discriminatory? by Michael Storozhev (I contributed to the Guidance Resource: AI and Discrimination for Insurance Pricing and Underwriting)
- Huang, F., Liu, K. and Yu, J., 2022. UNSW data analytics Sandbox empowers young actuaries to help solve industry problems, Actuaries Digital
- Actuaries Digital 2021: Virtual Summit Shorts: The Discriminating (Pricing) Actuary, by Hugh Miller
- SBS Interview (in Chinese) 2021 on Insurance Discrimination, Link
- Value Driven Data Science Podcast 2022, Episode 3: Fairness and Anti-Discrimination in Machine Learning
My Research Supervision
- Laura Zhao (primary supervisor), part-time PhD student at UNSW Sydney, National Industry PhD Program
- Xi Xin (primary supervisor), PhD student at UNSW Sydney
- Yumo Dong (primary supervisor), PhD student at the Australian National University, graduated.
My Teaching
- ACTL4305/5305 Actuarial Data Science Applications (2020 - now)
Sandbox project (2021): Develop Pricing Models for SME Building Insurnace with Features Having High Cardinality. Industry Partner: Suncorp. Media Coverage
Sandbox project (2022): Multi-coverage Claim Modelling for Insurance Packaged Products. Industry Partner: IAG. Event Video
Sandbox project (2023): Understanding Bushfire Event Risk Across Australia. Industry Partner: Suncorp. Event Video - ACTL3142/5110 Statistical Machine Learning for Risk and Insurance Applications (2021-2022)
Sandbox project (2022): Predicting Claims Inflation for Commercial Auto Insurance Pricing. Industry Partner: IAG. Event Video