Chief Risk and Actuarial Officer
Shawna Ackerman has worked with CEA as an actuarial consultant since the early 2000s. She was hired by CEA to begin working in-house as CEA’s Chief Actuary in 2010. She additionally became CEA’s Chief Risk Officer in December 2019.
Shawna develops rates, prepares unpaid claim estimates, and oversees CEA’s catastrophe loss modeling, which informs CEA rates and risk transfer needs. Shawna initiated the collection and rating on foundation types in order for CEA to provide financial incentives—in the form of premium discounts—to people whose houses are seismically retrofitted. That discount has grown from 5% based on CEA’s enabling statute, to now offered as a maximum discount of 25% as of 2019.
Prior to joining CEA, Shawna started her insurance career at the California Department of Insurance, where she reviewed the first CEA rate filing! She spent 12 years in consulting before joining the CEA. Shawna enjoys volunteer work in the actuarial profession as a way to stay connected and give back, and has served on the boards of the American Academy of Actuaries and the Casualty Actuarial Society, served as co-chair of the AAA Extreme Events Committee, and was the 2018-19 President of the American Academy of Actuaries.
Shawna has lived on the West Coast her entire life, always within just a few miles of an earthquake fault (or two). The 1994 Northridge event impacted her personally—living in Santa Monica at the time gave her firsthand experience of the damage and disruption an earthquake creates. It also impacted her professionally, starting her on the path that led her to her working at CEA.