Featuring Frank Chang, VP of Applied Science at Uber and Immediate Past President of the CAS BoardThe growth set. What’s changing in the actuarial profession — and how do we flex the right muscles to grow?In this episode of Almost Nowhere, Frank Chang joins Alicia Burke, Max Martinelli, and Josh Meyers live from the 2025 CAS Spring Meeting to talk about:How actuaries are solving non-traditional problems at companies like Uber and GoogleWhat needs to change in how we train, credential, and promote actuarial talentWhy judgment is the irreplaceable skill in the age of AIAnd whether it’s finally time to bring Max back into the credentialing foldYou’ll also hear a debate about global AI adoption, a vision for modernizing actuarial work, and yes — a brief segment on everyone’s bench press max.This episode is about finding balance: technical and human, tradition and innovation, strength and judgment.
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Kay Wakeman - IIHS/HLDI
Our guest, Kay Wakeman of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute, is a trusted voice for insurance-embedded research. Her CAS sessions are routinely standing-room only — and after hearing this conversation, you’ll understand why.Join us as Kay helps answer some big questions:Which collision-avoidance systems actually reduce losses?Why are EVs both safer and more expensive to insure?How is speed-limiting tech reshaping conversations about regulation and underwriting?And could partial automation be doing more harm than good on real roads?Whether you're an actuary, a product manager, or just someone wondering why your car keeps yelling at you — this episode is a crash course in what today’s safety tech gets wrong, and what the data says we should do next.Recorded live at the 2025 CAS Spring Meeting in Toronto, this episode of Almost Nowhere separates the marketing from the math when it comes to vehicle safety tech.
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Jim Guszcza
In this episode, we talk with Jim Guszcza — former US Chief Data Scientist at Deloitte and current CAS Board Member — about what the future of AI should look like. We challenge the ideology of artificial intelligence, explore how actuaries can lead the shift to human-centered systems, and dive into the power of collective intelligence, participatory design, and explainability. If you’ve ever wondered how to build models that actually work — and what we’re missing when we treat AI as magic — this episode is for you.Jim's latest publications
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Drew Hill, Product Manager at MCA
In this episode, we talk with Drew Hill, a product manager at Mutual Capital Analytics, about what happens when product, actuarial, and data science roles start to blend — and why that might be exactly what the future of insurance needs. We get into AI, upskilling, regulatory hurdles, model trust, and how cross-functional teams are reshaping product strategy from the inside out.
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Molly Mowery - What the WUI?!
We are joined by Molly Mowery, AICP, a national leader in wildfire mitigation and land use planning. She’s the founder of Wildfire Planning International and co-founder of the Community Wildfire Planning Center.We explore how data, AI, and smart planning are shaping wildfire risk mitigation across the wildland-urban interface (WUI). Molly walks us through the evolving tools and policies designed to protect communities, the challenges that come with rapid growth in high-risk areas, and what insurers and data scientists need to understand about the future of this growing threat.Links Mentioned & Other Research:Molly’s Publication: Planning the Wildland-Urban InterfaceCould this Irvine neighborhood be the blueprint for a more fire-resistant L.A.?2025 RPM Aligning Industries for Wildfire Resilience KCC Wildfire Losses Whitepaper Florida's wildfire season and weather: what's at play?
Welcome to Almost Nowhere, the podcast where we explore the cutting-edge intersection of data science, AI, and actuarial science in the P&C insurance industry and beyond.
In the world of insurance, there’s a lot of talk about progress, but it often feels like we're "almost nowhere" in terms of real-world change. The path to innovation can be slow, but the possibilities are infinite. This is exactly what we want to explore on Almost Nowhere—the road to transformation, the hurdles we face, and how data and AI are propelling us toward new frontiers.
If you're a professional in the insurance industry, whether you're an actuary, data scientist, or a curious outsider, this podcast is for you. Each episode offers deep insights into how emerging technologies are changing the way we think about risk, data, and predictive modeling, with an emphasis on real-world applications and challenges faced by professionals every day.
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