Expert Spotlight Chris Smerald - May 2025
- Charlotte Clarke
- May 12
- 3 min read
What is your role now since leaving corporate life?
I am a Contract Actuarial Consultant applying new thinking and mature experience to discover rabbits (elegant simple solutions hidden in plain sight).
How long have you been an expert of Camelot?
Since 2019
Have you been a panel expert on any Road Tests?
I have been an Expert on several and the focus on practicality always gives me useful new insights. I take secret pleasure in seeing David Clamp (CEO of Camelot) ruthlessly clamp down on us to contribute, but keep it brief.
Are you a leader or a member of a Camelot Special Interest Group?
I joined several SIG’s (Special interest groups) early on and it brilliantly introduced me to some very insightful experts, and made Camelot feel like a home, not a network.
Area of expertise
Actuarial Scientist
Highest/proudest most recognisable previous role
Vice President and Associate Actuary at AIG Global Finance
How long have you been doing this subject/area
1985
What is your company name?
Emerald Lake Consulting
What is your LinkedIn profile URL?
Please can you provide some examples of recent projects/professional high points that you’ve worked on?
Established a full GMM implementation of IFRS 17 with its own models and no consultants.
Current member of the CAS research council.
Best practice underwriting model development at AIG
Owned AIG’s worldwide capital model reserve risk parameterisation.
14 years London Market Pricing.
Frequent conference speaker on complex problem solving and communication.
Business Owner of large data transformation project
Developed a unique risk management framework that empowered staff.
Recognised thought leader within pricing, reserving and analytics.
What is your unique selling point? What makes your business approach unique?
I find rabbits -elegant, simple solutions hidden in plain sight-which breed step-change improvements and multiply value across insurance organizations.
I do this through:
Experience: 30+ years extending actuarial science in pricing, reserving, risk, and analytics across diverse business lines, regions, and regulatory regimes.Business Partnership: Bridging actuarial rigor with business priorities, seeing challenges from both the business owner’s and management’s perspectives.
Research Insights: Bringing fresh perspectives from language philosophy, statistical process control, AI, and systems sciences.
The result: Breakthrough thinking that makes your models and processes clearer, more efficient, and more adaptable-delivering lasting value in a rapidly changing insurance landscape.
Do you have a Favourite quote?
Wittgenstein PI 121: A main source of our failure to understand is that we don’t have an overview of the use of our words. – our grammar is deficient in surveyability. A surveyable representation produces precisely that sort of understanding which consists in seeing connections. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate links.
Any professional goals for the upcoming year? Too many:
Getting my actuarial practice certificate
Making Systems Sciences and Statistical Process Control mainstream in insurance
Co-creating a self-organising process at the Casualty Actuarial Society to discover new research priorities
Improving my Python and LLM programming skills as part of my International RTL participation
Find a new niche as a seed innovator in insurance
Contribute spark ideas to the International Society for Systems Sciences towards a general systems theory
Get more involved with the UK Values Alliance
And… Last but not least, how does being an expert of Camelot help you/or add value to your business?
It keeps me fresh and challenges me to be relevant to those outside my profession
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