My Actuarial Working Life

In several discussions with Prophet users, the topic of sub-product codes, commonly known as SPCODE , often comes up. I thought it would be helpful to share some of my views on how SPCODE should be used—especially in terms of maintaining model flexibility and supporting various actuarial analyses.

In my previous post about using enumerations in Prophet, I referenced "calculation looping" in one of the illustrations. That got me thinking—not all Prophet users may be familiar with this concept. After all, not every Prophet model uses the calculation looping technique. Let’s take a closer look at what calculation looping is, how it works, and why it’s useful—especially when you're dealing with different sets of assumptions in a single run.

From my experience working with Prophet users (Valuation Team), most are quite familiar with running in-force projections, such as monthly valuation and embedded value calculations. However, when it comes to new business ("NB") processing , many users find themselves uncertain or confused on how it works. It’s not uncommon for me to receive questions like,  "Why can’t I just use the cross multiplication method?" "Why does the project method take so much longer to run?" (Prefer video? View the  video  for this post!)

If you’ve upgraded your Prophet version to Release 2024 Q4, you might have noticed a new and helpful feature: you can now define a variable as an enumeration type—in addition to the usual number and text types. (Prefer video? View the video for this post!)

In one of the discussions with my team about medical insurance, I emphasized that claim data is one of the most valuable assets  for insurance companies. Even if insurers engage third-party administrators ("TPAs") to handle claim processing, it’s crucial for them to retain access to detailed claim data – and at a granular level.