Actuary Jobs: Anyone an actuary? I'm looking for unbiased information

svr411 said:   Con:

As software becomes better, more and more actuaries will be going under the bus. It takes very few US CS wizards to oversee an outsourced team of developers. Data crunching scales well.

This is so true. I've been hearing of tons of job difficulties in the insurance/math sort of field. I am also somewhat of a CS wizard who has been replacing jobs with computers. All it takes is a few good algorithms to often replicate the work of an entire employee.

BEEFjerKAY said:   dshibb said:   From what I've heard the last test for actuary is one of the hardest tests administered for any profession. If you somehow turnout to be a math genius and manage to pass it you will get more money than you know what to do with. That said some of the smartest math minds out there frequently take it and fail. So unless your almost a savant then don't count on passing it.

1. True.
2. Perhaps, the money is good, but hardly compares with Wall Street.
3. True, in great part because it's not exclusively about math
4. Not true.

Of course I could be wrong. I'm not basing my statements on what I've heard. Only on what I've personally seen and done.Someone here once told an actuary joke... started with "a man is told by his doctor that he only has six months to live..."

I work for a large benefits consulting firm, so I can give you a little more perspective on that side of the business (the casualty / life insurance side is above). I chose the consulting route as I thought it would have more "business exposure" than I I'd have in an insurance company. Unfortunately, the pension side of the business is in a slow decline so I probably wouldn't recommend that you get into that space now, although the healthcare consulting side is still doing pretty well. I mostly work with medium and large companies, and I really like the client interaction -- my favorite days are the days I have client meetings.

As other's have pointed out above, the tests are very challenging -- I never, ever, ever failed any test until I got to the 3rd actuarial exam, and I failed a couple of more along the way. It took me about 10 years to get through all of the exams (there were more than 8 when I took them, although each covered less material), and I slowed down towards the end as I was busy with other work/family obligations. 20 years ago when I started my career, one exam was the expectation out of college -- now it seems like it is 2 or 3 exams to get a good number of interviews for an entry level position.

Although more people have heard the word actuary in recent years, most people still have no idea what they do. So be prepared to explain (in layman's terms) what you do for a living, and be prepared that no matter how you present it that it won't make for a great pickup line.

Good luck if you pursue the career path -- just be prepared for the exams. But if you put in the 300-400 hours for each, you should have a fairly high pass rate (but I have yet to meet anyone who's never failed at least one).

Hi Ben - I also used to be a high school math teacher. I passed the first 2 actuarial exams before getting an entry level actuarial job. I ended up working in an actuarial pension consulting firm. The work is not bad at all, but pension consulting is diminishing so I would suggest to look into either insurance companies or property and casualty field. For me, the biggest struggle is passing the exams since corporate hours is longer than academic hours. It's hard to find time to study, unless you give up all your weekend and just dedicate it to studying.

Also, passing at least one exam will help you land in an entry level job easily.

Here's the ave actuary salary
http://www.dwsimpson.com/salary.html

Good luck.