RIP, Adele Groyer: A Tribute to an Actuary
I knew her only from afar... but she told me what a Colin was ;)
Like many others, I found out this morning when one of her colleagues posted the following message on one of her accounts (it went up on Twitter/X and LinkedIn, potentially elsewhere):
It is with sadness I, Louis Rossouw, have to let you know that Adele passed away late on Friday from cancer.
I've known Adele since she was an actuary working at Old Mutual in Cape Town where she was a client of Gen Re. She joined Gen Re in London in 2008, where she became Head of Pricing & Research. She also took on the Regional Chief Actuary role in Canada but for health reasons she gave that up, and in 2021 she joined my team at Gen Re (Research & Analytics).
She was always a great asset for anyone she worked with. She was passionate about delivering high quality, accurate and insightful work and enjoyed passing on some of her vast knowledge. Adele could also become quite passionate about technical discussions, and one would find it tricky arguing with her sometimes, most often because she was right.
She also contributed greatly to her profession over the years in various roles including, articles, presentations and work for the CMI, Recently as a member of the COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group, she had been particularly passionate about understanding the numbers and data and implications of the pandemic as well as about pointing out where data and numbers were misinterpreted.
She continued to deliver quality work and insights until December and continued to comment on COVID-19 data even in the last couple of weeks.
I will miss Adele and she leaves an irreplaceable gap in Gen Re, our profession, our industry and in many of our hearts.
Our condolences are with her family, her husband and her son.
Responses on Twitter/X
The tweet is the same message, split out. Here are some responses (and I’m just taking screenshots for convenience).
There were many more than this, You can see more at the thread.
Longer Reactions
Henry Tapper has his own post: Adele Groyer, who helped us through Covid – has died
A little lightness…
I wasn’t close to Adele, obviously — I had no idea she had cancer.
This was my last interaction with her:
[and then we discussed the ingredients]
My interactions with Adele in 2023 were more like that — light items. I did not know her health situation at all, but in general, I’m on twitter/X to just chat and have a good time.
Earlier, though, our interactions were discussions around differences in the UK and U.S. mortality data — the U.S. has certain aspects that do not hold in the UK. So we were teasing those out. I will miss those discussions.
An Actuarial Take on Cancer
Back in March 2023, Adele recorded a video with a colleague on her cancer treatment while working with GenRe:
The video was part of a GenRe post: Income Protection: Understanding Cancer Survivorship and Claims Management [Video]
I was planning on doing a post on cancer before I heard about Adele’s death this morning. When I saw this announcement, I shifted gears.
Cancer has been the #2 cause of death in the U.S. for decades and there have been changes in patterns through the pandemic. I want to put up some of the recent items I’ve seen. Posts will be forthcoming, but not today.
RIP, Adele.
Condolences to her loved ones.