The Importance Of Being An Actuary And Actuarial Science

Being an Actuary and Actuarial Science

In 2013 careercast.com ranked being an Actuary as the number 1 job in America. Careercast.com used a number of different factors to determine the rankings, such as pay, work environment, job satisfaction, and future job growth. Actuarial Science is the root of being an Actuary but the question being asked by nearly everybody in society is what is an Actuary and what is Actuarial Science?

Actuarial Science is the assessment of risk through mathematics and statistics with an Actuary being the business professional that calculates and understates the impact of risk. By understanding the very nature of risk, Actuaries play a key role in the psychological, physical, and financial stability of society. The way by understanding risk is through a number of interrelated subjects including economics, financial economics, statistics, mathematics, and probability. “With the knowledge of those interrelated subjects actuaries are then experts in predicting the probability of an event happening in the future, designing ways to decrease the probability of undesirable events, and reducing the impact of an undesirable event if it were to occur.”

Actuarial Science is applied to a broad range of fields or industries. The most common field of Actuarial science is insurance. That makes senses since insurance is an arrangement in which a company or the government provides compensation for undesirable event in ones life. Basically insurance is protecting against uncertainty or risk in everyday life. There are two main actuary groups when it comes to insurance, the Society of Actuaries and Casualty Actuaries Society.

The Society of Actuaries (SOA) is involved in life insurance, health insurance, and pension. The SO...

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...ome a Fellow of either society. A Fellow is the highest destination of each Society. To become a fellow of the CAS is to take an additional three exams to what the candidate or member has already taken. The three exams are Exam 7-Estimation of Policy Liabilities, Insurance Company Valuation, and Enterprise Risk Management, Exam 8-Advance Ratemaking, Exam 9-Financial Risk and Rate of Return. To become a Fellow of the SOA is a much more in depth process. There are six different tracks to becoming a Fellow, with each track having a minimum of three exams, three modules, and each track attending the Fellowship Admissions Seminar. The six different tracks are Corporate Finance and Enterprise Risk Management Track, Quantitative Finance and Investment Track, Individual Life and Annuities Track, Retirement Benefits Track, Group Health Track, and General Insurance Track.