A Practitioner's Guide to Generalized Linear Models

This paper introduces the foundation of generalized linear models and explains the theory through examples and intuitive explanations. The paper is suitable for practicing actuaries who would like to understand generalized linear models (GLMs) and use them to analyze insurance data. The guide is divided into three sections. Section 1 provides a foundation for the statistical theory and gives illustrative examples and intuitive explanations which clarify the theory. The intuitive explanations build upon more commonly understood actuarial methods such as linear models and the minimum bias procedures. Section 2 provides practical insights and realistic model output for each model.

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