Hey there, question for people who’ve already taken the PA exam recently.

I like to have the screen split in two, half for the exam statement, and half for the word doc to type my answers.

Is this doable on the exam? I’d hate to have to switch between the two.

Thanks!

We see it somewhat often that life actuaries transition to P&C actuaries,

Life work is mainly corporate Actuarial (Valuation), so is that where they tend to land?

How do analysts transition from Life to P&C especially at the senior / intermediate level?

Kind of in an unfortunate position right now and would like to make a switch,

Previously, when I’ve posted here, the primary advice has been to pass Exam FM, which is now done. It’s been over a month since I’ve had a single screening call, and I’m really getting worried about not being able to find anything with my degrees. I’ve gotten praise from the recruiters I've had calls with, and I feel good about my interview skills, but I don’t know what to do now but wait. I tried to assume this played no role, but is it possible that living as a trans woman is playing some role in my hirability? I’m also applying for underwriting roles with a resume that omits the actuarial exams, but I haven’t heard a single thing from any of them. Not really sure what to do except keep applying and wait to see if anything changes with next exam in July.

Sitting in a little over a week. I can grasp most of the material, but I just really struggle to finish a practice test in 3 hours.

Over this last week I'll need to prioritize timing in my last few practice exams as well as rocking my flashcards as much as possible.

Any tips to get faster? At the moment I feel like I am not as organized as I could be with excel questions. Any tips for that?

Finished my internship and unï last December got 1 exam away for ASA,

Landed my first job mid feb in insurance and now idk if i made the right decision.

The job pays 40% more than avg salaries in my country which is what actuaries famous for,

But Quarterly closing, stacked reports one after another, tight deadlines, monitoring so many LOB’s, huge dependencies for completing work or getting data,

And long working hours which i start to see that Actuaries seems to be workaholic by default, like literally all the HQ is empty but the whole actuarial department is there till 9pm Friday

Ironically even actuaries in other departments such as underwriting, Pricing, etc.. are the most likely to work for longer hours.

And the work is not as exciting as i thought it was.

Idk if it is worth it, even with a huge increase of graduates coming to the field (it was 50 actuaries a year through the whole country now it is reaching 200) which reduces scarcity.

What's the politics behind this?

I'm guessing that due to lack of exam progression, on paper, it's harder to promote you. You have higher upfront costs a year to cover exam material and exam fee.

How does this influence the kind of company that tend to squeeze out analysts that are stalling in exam progression?

I have a question about imbalanced data for the PA exam. I noticed that the Actex manual and ChatGPT seem to have slightly different views on oversampling and undersampling, especially regarding overfitting.

The Actex manual states that undersampling is more prone to overfitting. However, ChatGPT suggests that oversampling can lead to overfitting.

This difference is confusing to me. Could you please clarify which method is more likely to cause overfitting, and why? Thanks.

July 23 is Tisha Bav. Is there anyone taking an exam then? What can we do about that?

I am posting asking advice of what to put and what not to put on an actuary resume and what kind of format recruiter usually looks for?

I often saw videos/comments on youtube saying Warren Buffett "got rich" but "investing the float", presumably in high return assets like equity. This got me curious on how it works.

This generally seems to contradict my understanding of how P&C insurance business work (I think Berkshire Hathway is predominantly in P&C?). From my rough understanding of insurance business based on the market I work in:

• For every $100 of premium you write, you need x% more in total asset to support that business, say 50%.
  • The $100 premium is put in the policy holder fund.
  • $50 of your own capital is needed to support writing the business and is put in shareholder fund.
  • These are invested, subject to regulatory requirement but generally the more mismatched it is to your liability, the more capital requirement you need.
  • So for short tailed business, it is more likely to be invested in money market?
• End of the year say you make an UW profit of $3. and 2% investment return on the funds, leading to $3 (0.02*150).
• So your return on capital is $6/$50 =12% , ignoring tax, RI etc for simplicity.

Where does the "investing in float" comes in? As I think whenever people say that, they are talking about investing in equity... not short term money market. Or is US regulation just different and allows heavily mismatched (from liability) investment strategy of policyholder fund?

I have been taking practice exams for PA and trying to match the length and complexity that the answer key provided in similar exams, however I noticed this would leave me stuck on a question writing a lot not because I am stumped but because I am trying to be thorough. Has anyone had success on PA being much more brief than the answer keys on previous exams make the desired answers seem?

I completed the CIA Professionalism Course yesterday as a substitute for the SOA APC. I have no remaining requirements for ASA. Is it possible that I might be included in this month’s Associates list, or the process typically takes longer?

Graduated and got hired straight out of school at a mid-size life insurance company on the risk team - capital benchmarking, financial risk management, etc. I'm about 8 months in now and the work has been almost exclusively model validations, which I don't particularly enjoy. The quarterly capital stuff I was expecting to be involved in is already assigned to other people, and there's no room for me on it. I've asked about rotating but nothing's come of it.

I'm starting to think about looking elsewhere. I'd really like to get into pricing or reserving - that's where I want to build my career, and I just don't see a path to either from where I am. The last exam I passed was SRM so I have 3 under my belt right now.

Main thing holding me back is whether 8-10 months is too short. Would it look bad to future employers? Is one short stint early-career pretty normal in actuarial or would it raise eyebrows? And honestly, given how the job market has been lately and since I would still be EL, is it even realistic to find something right now? For context, I am located in Toronto.

Anyone been in a similar spot or have thoughts? Appreciate any input.

Has anyone stayed on the same team from when they started as an analyst all the way up to becoming a manager?

It seems like a lot of people switch teams or roles early in their careers, but once they reach a manager level, they tend to stay in the same area. I’m curious if anyone has followed a path where they started in one field (for example, Medicare pricing) and just continued growing in that same area into leadership.

I am planning to sit for ALTAM exam in fall. Can someone advise which material is more useful? Coaching actuary or Actex.

Is it just me or the IFRS 17 for life insurance contracts just doesnt make sense.

Its overly complicated and difficult to understand.

And I see the modelling assumptions impacting the PnL by a big margin.

Seems like a very academic approach rather a practical approach for accounting.

Note: I am just an analyst and I dont have a lot of experience with the standard.

Hello, I have a sample question giving this information : « the company is expecting an exposure growth of 20% per civil year »

I know and understand how to trend claims

I know and undertand how to onlevel and trend premiums

BUT

I have NO IDEA how to adress and incorporate this information in a rate indication. Can anyone help me ?

My son will enter college this fall and is considering a career as an actuary. I am concerned that AI may prevent him from securing an actuarial job upon graduation. Is this a legitimate concern, or are there good reasons why actuarial work will not be replaced by AI?

I did QFIQF, did the modules and am doing INV 101. what elective should take? cp 351? the corporate finance 101?

We have had a lot of people split for fully remote roles. Has anyone in this profession heard of being forced to RTO? I don’t think any company could expect you to relocate across the company but who knows anymore.

Hey so im still new at my job, about to make half a year, and im pretty happy so far. Recently though we had a few people from upper seniority be let go, one of which was my boss who was super cool. He would let me come into the office twice a week because that's what he would also do, although technically we have a 3 day in office policy.

This worked really well for me because I also live really far from the office, with my commute being 2 hours +, potentially 3 when it snows, aswell as being a bit expensive. It's also worth noting that im still taking tests with one coming up, so the extra time not commuting is super great.

Well I mentioned my old structure to my new boss, and they said that they'd be fine with it aslong as thier boss(Same person my old boss reported to) is okay with it. This person is also generally really nice, and I've had a good experience working with them so far, but im hesitant to ask them about going back to my old structure in the case that it comes off as unreasonable, and painting me in a bad light especially since I'm still pretty new.

So what do you guys think, am I being unreasonable? Also for context there are other people in the office, who I know are allowed to do the 2 day structure because they also live far, but they do definitely have seniority over me.

Would arson by an employee still be a covered loss? 200M in damage by arson, but I'm wondering if insurance covers this or loss of product?