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IAI Actuarial Core Principles · Business Management · Using data, company functions, people skills, influence and clear communication

An actuary at a Mumbai life insurer is asked to brief the executive committee on why lapse rates rose last year. She has a table of 40 monthly lapse rates by product and region. Which presentation approach is most appropriate for a senior non-technical audience?

A simple chart of lapse trends by the main drivers, with a clear headline and stated data caveats, suits a non-technical executive committee. It communicates the pattern and its limits, whereas raw tables, statistical jargon, a single extreme value or one overall average obscure or distort the message.

  1. ACirculate the full 40-row table with no commentary so the committee draws its own conclusions
  2. BShow a simple chart of lapse rates over time split by the main drivers, with a short headline message and the key caveats on data qualityCorrect
  3. CPresent only the single highest lapse rate to dramatise the problem
  4. DDescribe the results using regression coefficients and p-values only
  5. Present the average lapse rate across all products as one figure with no breakdown

Explanation

Senior non-technical audiences need a clear message supported by a simple visual and honest caveats. A raw table or pure statistics hides the story, while one extreme or one average figure is selective or loses the pattern by product and region.

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