News

Richard Cumpston is retiring

Richard commenced his career with the T&G Society, and qualified as an actuary in 1967. His earlier training as an electrical engineer was abandoned after he discovered it would mean having to live in the USA.

Life at the T&G became restrictive, and so in the early 1970s Richard joined the actuarial consulting firm of ES Knight & Co in Melbourne. Shortly thereafter he became a partner, and was then heavily involved in the developing field of actuarial work for general insurers. Until that time actuarial work had often meant just life insurance, with superannuation as part of insurance. Richard and a few others were instrumental in both developing techniques to value general insurance liabilities, and of making others aware of actuarial services in that field.

Richard's research efforts have been considerable, and have covered over 100 papers in general insurance, demography and related fields. He was on the board of WorkCover Victoria after having been involved in the design of that and other accident compensation schemes.

After a 6 year period in the Knights office in Canberra, Richard returned to Melbourne. Following the sale of Knights to Mercer he had a stint with the firm of John Ford and Associates, then 5 years with Tillinghast before founding the firm of Cumpston Sarjeant.

During his time with us Richard has continued to develop new techniques, and has also contributed to public debate on such topics as bases for calculating economic loss, energy and greenhouse matters, and demographics.

Richard is completing a PhD on demographic projections, and will offer consulting services in that field. He will also continue to provide some consulting services to Cumpston Sarjeant. We all wish him success, and a very enjoyable future working life.