Valentin Germain, Life Consultant at Milliman

Valentin Germain, winner of the 2021 Best Actuarial Dissertation Award, entered ENSAE Paris after completing his engineering school training in Sophia Antipolis. He is now a consultant in the life team of the Milliman consulting firm.

1. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR CAREER BEFORE ENSAE PARIS AND DESCRIBE YOUR CURRENT SITUATION? WHAT DOES YOUR JOB ENTAIL?

Before joining ENSAE, I attended an engineering school in Sophia Antipolis (Polytech Nice-Sophia) in Computer Science and Mathematics Applied to Finance and Insurance (IMAFA).
Now consultant in the life team of Milliman, my work consists in assisting clients on various subjects in insurance. I am currently working on the landing and budget in IFRS17, which consists in calculating the level of assets/liabilities at the end of the year N and at N+1.

2.WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO JOIN ENSAE PARIS? WHAT DID THIS SPECIALIZED MASTER'S DEGREE BRING YOU AND WHAT ATTRACTED YOU TO THIS COURSE?

I chose to join ENSAE Paris at the end of my engineering course to develop my knowledge in actuarial science and with the aim of obtaining the title of actuary delivered by the Institute of Actuaries. In France, only eight schools offer the title of actuary and ENSAE is very well known by companies for its high quality technical training. This is what attracted me the most in this course: the excellence of the training as much in the content of the courses as in the teachers and speakers. The ENSAE provided me with a solid scientific background in actuarial science/finance through a variety of courses. Indeed, some courses are compulsory while others can be chosen by the student, which allowed me to build a course according to my desires. For example, I took a course on catastrophe risks which allowed me to orient my internship and thesis research in this direction.

3. WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT YOUR TIME AT THE SCHOOL? FOR WHAT REASONS (AND TO WHICH PROFILE OF PEOPLE) WOULD YOU RECOMMEND THE ENSAE PARIS TRAINING?

Unfortunately, I did my MS during the COVID period, so I was not able to take much advantage of the associative or student life at ENSAE. Nevertheless, I remember the technical and quality courses. The MS is integrated after a baccalaureate + 5 years of study, so I would recommend this training to all types of people who already have a good scientific background through their education (engineer, university) and who wish to evolve or learn in the field of actuarial science (and finance). The training offers a wide choice of specializations and structures.

4. WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO THOSE INTERESTED IN ACTUARIAL SCIENCE?

Actuarial science is a vast field where you can't get bored! There are many possibilities and outlets. You can work in a consulting firm, in an insurance company, in a bank, on savings, car, health, retirement; but always keeping in mind that society is constantly evolving and that new issues are constantly arising. For my thesis, I studied the risk of climate transition that actuaries must address. The new challenges related to cyber issues, inflation, rising rates (after the fall of the latter has occupied actuaries a lot in recent years) are not to be neglected. The actuarial industry is constantly evolving and, given the new challenges to be addressed, there is still work to be done!

5. WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN ACTUARIAL SCIENCE?

As I said before, I did my thesis on climate change, and more specifically on the consideration of climate change in the modeling of biometric (mortality) and financial risks.
I dedicated my work to this topic because it is a subject that particularly interested me and that we will all be led to consider in our future work.
The overall idea of my dissertation is to provide elements of understanding of the new issues related to this changing environment, particularly by focusing on biometric and financial risks. It is built as a "toolbox" allowing on the one hand to understand the risks related to a climate change and the repercussions on the activity of insurers, and on the other hand to propose notions of risk on a 1-year horizon and new relevant risk modelling.
On the biometrics part, I built a model that integrates climatic factors and that allows to study the mortality shock on climatic causes such as high temperatures or air pollution. On the finance part, I studied the market movements that could be induced by stressed climatic conditions by also building a model integrating a climatic factor.