does anyone here know about actuary?

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i want to ask something. if you can help, that'll be great. thanks.

An Actuary is a mathematician employed by an insurance company to calculate premiums, reserves, dividends and insurance, pension and annuity rates using risk factors obtained from experience tables. These tables are based on both the company's history of insurance and other industry and general statistical data.

Actuaries make an excellent income.

au,

I am an actuary. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have about the profession.

Wow, that sounds like a potential career. Statistics, you say?

I'm also an actuary. I love it. Yes, statistics and mathematics. And lots of exams!

so glad i can ACTUAllY directly ask an ACTUArY! im wondering if i can take some of the exams before i get a degree. if so, how can i register and study for it? im not quite done with 2nd year level of math. how many exams are there to take? does having more licence proportional to the amount of salary? what is the salary like? what do you usually do? do you have to be really mathematical? by any chance, do you know the average iq of actuaries. do you have to be highly intelligent? im the type of person who likes to find patterns, calculate and make statistics, but i do poorly on math courses in university. for that matter, i do poorly on everything in university. poorly, below average or average. should i stop thinking about anything related to actuary?

wow, you joined only two days ago? lol

1. For specific questions on exams and qualification, I would need to know what country you are in. Actuarial certification varies quite a bit between countries, and each country has its own governing body (or bodies).
2. In general, the primary requirement for qualification is passing a series of examinations. Depending on where you are, this can vary from ten or so "big exams", typically with two attempts at an exam each year, to numerous smaller exam components. Typical "travel time" is 6-9 years for full qualification in places like the UK, US and Canada. Four years would be considered exceptionally fast.
3. While numerous universities now have actuarial science programs that prepare you for (or outright replace) the early exams, the middle and later exams will almost invariably require extensive self-study. 400-500 hours preparation for a "big exam" is typical, and pass rates tend to be around 40%. In the US, you can register for and take an exam by completing the appropriate paperwork and paying the fee; there is no requirement for university registration or anything similar.
4. The early exams tend to be heavy on mathematics and statistics. Later exams vary between intense applied mathematics and entirely "text content". The early exams are a good indicator of whether the profession is right for you - if you struggle with the basic mathematics and statistical exams, particularly if you have taken university courses in these subjects, then you probably will find it extremely difficult (although certainly not impossible) to go on to qualify.
5. Traditionally, the actuary's domain was to use mathematical analysis to forecast the financial consequences of contingent future events. Most commonly, this meant determining prices for insurance products and calculating the reserves the company needs to hold in order to meet its obligations to policyholders and remain solvent. As in many professions, the province of the actuarial profession is expanding and changing.
6. Day to day, entry-level actuaries do a lot of data manipulation and spreadsheet analysis. Once upon a time, programming to support these functions was commonplace; today, most actuaries don't code anything more advanced than Excel formulae (although some, particularly in life insurance, still do). Fundamentally, identifying and quantifying patterns and trends is central to the actuarial function.
7. Actuaries are perennially in demand, and compensation, particularly upon partial of full qualification, is consistently quite good relative to most other professions (particularly engineering and "hard sciences"). As in any profession, there is tremendous variation among individuals; however, even the low end of the scale for a newly qualified actuary is usually well above the national median.
8. As with any profession requiring significant education in "hard" (meaning "non-subjective") disciplines such as mathematics and science, one would expect actuaries to have a distribution of IQs above that of the general population. I would be amazed, however, if any such formal study has actually been conducted.
9. (Melissa's personal opinion, founded in experience) If you like mathematics, statistics and patterns, the actuarial profession in the main is a pretty good place for an autistic person. In addition to self-study, you can quickly achieve a great deal of self-direction in your work, and most of your daily interaction will be with your computer. A technically-oriented actuary can advance fairly far before being seriously affected by the dark side of corporate life (politics, etc.).

Hope this helps.

thanks for writing so long! i live in canada, but i might go to south korea later on. i just want to take at least an exam before the summer passes. im doing nothing right now.

If you are going to attempt an exam this summer, it will have to be the August sitting for either exam FM/2 (Financial Mathematics) or C/4 (no, not the explosive; Construction and Evaluation of Actuarial Models). The registration deadline for exam P/1 (Probability) has passed. The 29 June deadline for exam C/4 is fast approaching, and you have until 8 July to register for exam FM/2.

See www.actuaries.ca for details on Canadian actuarial qualification.

how do i study for these exams? self-study with books based on these exams? so you mean you can become an actuary without a degree?

Each exam has a syllabus with required/recommended reading. You can complete all exams through self-study, and attain a designation without a degree. Not having a university degree still could work against you when looking for a job, as the current economic and employment situation has resulted in companies resuming or starting to look at criteria that even two years ago may not have been considered.

See the Canadian Institute of Actuaries [CIA] web site (or the US societies, the Society of Actuaries [SOA] and the Casualty Actuarial Society [CAS], both of which jointly administer the early examinations with the CIA) for details on the exam syllabus and registration process.

I'm looking to get a degree in actuarial studies and economics myself. I haven't been this excited since I learned that equations could have multiple variables!

I have a question also. What do you recommend having as far as computer skills go?

Well I majored in Mathematical Sciences w/ an Actuarial concentration in college (and probably should have had a minor in Finance, I've considered petitioning the registrar's office to see if I met the requirements), so I can weigh in.

It's a very lucrative career if you can hack it, and a lot of business-minded math geeks are instantly attracted to it. While math/stats is an awesome skill to have in many careers. getting into an actuarial student program for an insurance company is probably the most pure-mathematical analysis position you can get with just a Bachelors (another reason it's so attractive). Of course, this field is competitive given how ideal it is for a lot of fresh out of college math students, and it has a high attrition rate due to the sequence of exams one needs to pass to become an Associate or Fellow in the Society of Actuaries (or Casualty Actuarial Society, depends whether you're in life or property/casualty). You can find out more about these at http://www.beanactuary.org

So I guess it begs the question, if I rave about the potential of the career so much, why aren't I in it? Well, I had the privilege of graduating in 2008, right as the job market was tanking. So after some of that fun, I ended up in my current role as a data analyst, which has required me to pick up some additional skills in programming and computer science. Still pretty decent, though I'd like to eventually try to get into an student program (I have 1 exam passed, I never had the motivation to pass the 2nd after I got bogged down w/ other careers).

Sorry to gravedig this topic but I just had this pointed to me as a good career opportunity based on testing I've taken. As of right now I have a four year BBA in Financial Accounting. My question to the actuaries, I'm in my early 30's right now and I'd like to get a sense of how many years it takes to gain 'entry'? I see that full accredidation takes 6 to 9 years, which is fine if I can start employment in that field significantly sooner. I'm trying to size this up in reference to whether its still a realistic option.


Thank you.