Skip to main content

CAS Exam 7 Five-Week Bootcamp For October 2025 Sitting

Register Today!





    The CAS Exam 7 Five-Week Bootcamp is designed to reinforce candidates’ understanding of ratemaking and reserving concepts and ensure that they are fully prepared for exam day.  The course covers the entire syllabus, with an emphasis on the topics most likely to be tested.  Each session will begin with a conceptual overview of the material, followed by an interactive review of problems from past CAS exams.  By the end of the course, candidates should feel confident in their ability to pass Exam 7.

    Marco De Virgilis, FCAS is a specialist in preparing students for CAS Exam 7.  He has served as an industry mentor and a contributor to MIT Professional Education’s Applied Data Science Program.  He is currently a Principal Actuarial Data Scientist at Accelerant, where he works on advanced analytics initiatives across specialty insurance products.

    The CAS Exam 7 Five-Week Bootcamp provides the following:

    Weekly 2 hour live lectures each Saturday morning starting at 10:00AM EST integrating concept building with significant focus on problem solving improvement and mastery
    The Exam 5 Discussion Group open only to program members to communicate with fellow students and Jeremy Medina
    Q & A Email Correspondence in which students can email Jeremy Medina questions
    Mini-Sessions in which students can schedule private sessions with Jeremy Medina
    Weekly online office hours with Jeremy Medina
    Open Forum for questions with Jeremy Medina immediately following each lecture
    All lectures recorded and available to students

    Schedule

    Live Classes & Subjects

    Saturdays (All Classes 10:00-12:00PM EDT)

    Week 1 — Foundations of Unpaid Claim Estimation & Data Diagnostics

    1. Course Introduction

      • Overview of Exam 7 domains and tasks
      • Cognitive levels & exam item types
    2. Data Preparation, Organization & Diagnostics (Tasks 1)

      • Structure and purpose of claims data
      • Internal vs. external data considerations
      • Homogeneity, credibility of the data source
      • Key claims dates (occurrence, report, settlement, payment)
      • Triangle construction fundamentals: paid, incurred, case outstanding
      • Data quality issues & remedies:
        • Missing data
        • Calendar year distortions
        • Implicit case reserve changes
        • Large losses, anomalous development
      • Readings:
        • Brosius – credibility in development factors
        • Hürlimann – claims reserve credibility
        • Shapland – bootstrap data considerations
        • Friedland – data issues for reinsurance (intro)
    3. Diagnostic Triangles

      • Case reserve adequacy tests
      • Settlement speed & reporting lag diagnostics
      • Paid / incurred / claim count triangle relationships
      • Expected vs. actual emergence checks
    4. Introduction to Deterministic Methods

      • Chain ladder assumptions (Mack)
      • Developing intuition for link ratios & development patterns
      • Understanding assumption violations (precursor to Venter Factors)

    Week 2 — Deterministic Reserving Methods & Reasonableness Testing

    1. Chain Ladder & Deterministic Methods (Tasks 2–3, 12)

      • LDF selection (quantile, weighted average, regression-based)
      • Weighted-average & curve-fitting approaches
      • Clark: LDF curve fitting & maximum likelihood
      • Mack (Chain Ladder) – deterministic mean estimate foundation
      • Testing reasonableness of estimates:
        • Calendar year distortions
        • Stability of tail factors
        • Diagnostic plots & internal consistency
    2. A Priori-Based Methods (Tasks 2–3)

      • Expected loss method: premium-based vs. exposure-based
      • Benchmark loss ratios
      • Adjusting for trend, mix, benefit changes
      • When to rely more heavily on a priori vs. emerging data
    3. Bornhuetter-Ferguson & Benktander Methods (Tasks 2–3, 9)

      • Conceptual derivation of BF
      • Impact of expected loss ratio inaccuracies
      • Mack (Benktander) – credibility-weighted updating
      • Hürlimann viewpoint on Benktander & credibility reserve methods
    4. Testing Underlying Assumptions (Task 12)

      • Venter Factors – testing age-to-age assumptions
      • Impact of case reserve shifts
      • Process changes in claims handling & operations
    5. Layered Reserving Concepts (Preview for Week 4)

      • Why deterministic patterns distort by layer
      • Role of trend, severity models (Sahasrabuddhe)

    Week 3 — Stochastic Reserving & Predictive Distributions

    1. Stochastic Framework (Tasks 6–10, 11)

      • Process vs. parameter risk
      • Mean squared error of reserve estimates
    2. Distribution Parameter Estimation

      • Using historical variability to estimate variance
      • Estimating process variance vs. parameter variance
    3. Stochastic Chain Ladder Models

      • Mack Model (stochastic version):
        • Variance formulas
        • Prediction error decomposition
      • Bootstrap ODP (Shapland):
        • Residual sampling
        • Calendar year effects
        • Producing predictive distributions
      • GLM Framework (Taylor & McGuire):
        • ODP, Poisson, Gamma
        • Interpretation of parameters
    4. Bayesian MCMC (Meyers)

      • Priors & posterior distributions
      • Using MCMC to estimate predictive distributions
      • Interpreting credible intervals
    5. Risk Margins & Range of Indications (Tasks 13–14)

      • Marshall et al. – framework for risk margins
      • Selecting confidence levels
      • Coherence between methods
      • Presenting a range of reserves (not a point estimate)

    Week 4 — Advanced Topics: Layers, Frequency–Severity, Case Outstanding, and Adjustments

    1. Layer-by-Layer Reserving (Task 4)

      • How claim size models tie to development patterns
      • Sahasrabuddhe: Development by layer
      • Adjusting development factors for excess layers
      • High-deductible models (Siewert)
    2. Frequency–Severity Reserving (Tasks 2, 6–12)

      • When frequency–severity is preferable to triangle methods
      • Severity trend
      • Seasonality adjustments
      • Disposal rates (settlement patterns)
    3. Case Outstanding Development Methods

      • Incremental paid to prior case outstanding method
      • Case outstanding development modeling
      • Advantages vs. triangle-based methods
    4. Berquist–Sherman Adjustments

      • Adjusted incurred method
      • Adjusted paid method
      • Correcting for:
        • Shifts in case reserve adequacy
        • Operational or workflow changes
        • Settlement speed shifts
    5. Forecasting Premium Reserves (Task 5)

      • Retrospective rating plans
      • Teng & Perkins – estimating premium assets
      • Link between premium reserve and loss reserve assumptions

    Week 5 — Reinsurance Reserving, Evaluation, Integration & Capstone

    1. Reinsurance Reserving (Tasks 15–17)
      • Adjusting primary methods for ceded data
      • Reporting lags & contractual distortions
      • Applying BF/B-S/Mack to reinsurance layers
      • Friedland – reinsurance reserving concepts
      • Types of reinsurance (quota share, XOL, stop loss, LPTs)
    2. Ceded Loss Reserve Calculations (Task 16)
      • Net vs. ceded vs. gross triangles
      • Recoverables: salvage & subrogation
      • Reinsurance bad debt considerations (high level)
    3. Holistic Evaluation of Results
      • Reasonableness tests
      • Reconciliation across methods
      • Internal & external benchmarks
      • Expected vs. actual emergence after selections (monitoring)
    4. Developing a Combined Reserve Recommendation
      • Synthesizing deterministic + stochastic outputs
      • Presenting ranges & uncertainty
      • Risk margins, confidence levels
      • Communication to stakeholders (actuarial, senior management, regulators)
    5. Capstone Workshop
      • Full case study:
        • Build triangles
        • Apply deterministic & stochastic methods
        • Evaluate assumptions
        • Produce best estimate + range
        • Include ceded reserve analysis
      • Final memo: methods, diagnostics, and reserve recommendation

    Join The CAS Exam 7 Five-Week Bootcamp and Maximize Your Exam Skills to Pass Exam 5 For the October 2025 Sitting

    REGISTER