My Actuarial Working Life

When I went through a few chapters of " Catastrophe, Injury, Insurance: The Impact of Catastrophes on Workers Compensation, Life, and Health Insurance " published by Risk Management Solutions (RMS) in 2006, two paragraph about nuclear power stations and tsunami caught my attention - the first paragraph commented the chances of a major radioactivity release from the nuclear power station: Scenarios that fall into these plausible mass casualty events but are improbable include a large-scale accidental release of radioactivity from a nuclear power station. Estimates suggest that such an event could affect several million people and make many hundreds of thousands sick. Operating safety standards for nuclear power stations require that the chances of a major radioactivity release are maintained at below 1 in 10,000. The second paragraph commented large-scale tidal waves: A tsunami or coastal tidal wave affecting a major stretch of coastline on either the ...

The Prime Minister’s Department presented the following government bills for first reading at Dewan Rakyat of Parliament Malaysia on 8 November 2011, which related to the retirement benefits (including pension) for the government servants: Pensions (Amendment) Bill 2011 Statutory and Local Authorities Pensions (Amendment) Bill 2011 Pensions Adjustment (Amendment) Bill 2011 Judges’ Remuneration (Amendment) (No.2) Bill 2011 As revealed in the recent Budget 2012, the retirement age of the government servants will be extended to  60 years old starting next year (2012). Currently, the retirement age is at 58 years old - although they can opt to retire earlier at age 55 or 56. Furthermore, in the event of a retiree passes away during 20 years (previously 12.5 years) after his retirement, his family members will continue to receive the full amount of his pension and other relevant retirement benefits. According to Budget 2012, the government expenditure on pensions and gratuitie...

The Malaysian Deputy Finance Minister Dato' Donald Lim Siang Chai has recently told the press that the government is expected to gradually implement Goods and Services Tax (GST) by end of 2012, and followed by the full implementation in 2013. Hopefully Dato' Donald's comment is the real indication of the implementation date of GST in Malaysia. The government has been discussing GST for quite some years - the Royal Malaysian Customs even set up a GST dedicated website to educate public on GST. Again, the 2012 Budget did not mention on the GST implementation - perhaps this may not be a good time for the Barisan Nasional government as the general election is around the corner. Different from the current single stage sales tax and service tax, GST is a multi-staged consumption tax that covers most supplies and goods. Since the GST implementation is once delayed, those corporates which are not ready yet should take this opportunity to revamp their systems (including their ...

“We have graduated for almost 10 years…” During the “pre Chinese New Year” dinner I have with a few Actuarial Science (normally we call “QA”) course-mates yesterday (20.01.2010) at Purple Cane Restaurant (Chinese Assembly Hall, Kuala Lumpur), I made the above remark. Yes, time flies, we have graduated from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) for almost 10 years already. It was really a great time to catch up with my old friends who I have known for more than 10 years. We also talked about other course-mates who were not there – I did hope that I was able to invite more (especially who work in Kuala Lumpur / Selangor), but unfortunately I do not have all contacts. Some of them work in oversea, such as Bee Chuan, Fong Siong (I just knew that he got married already!), Bee Chee and many more; some of them are we have totally lost contact (not even via Facebook), such as Eng Keong. I really appreciate the time I studied in UKM with these course-mates and it was a great thing that we ...