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Early in my career, people would often ask me how I ended up on my specific career path as an actuary. As a freshman studying Actuarial Science at Ball State University, I took a very active role early on in Gamma Iota Sigma, the International Risk Management Fraternity. I went to every employer campus presentation and signed up for every interview. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t end up with an internship that year; but, I was able to get a feel for what companies had the most interesting internship programs, were in attractive locations, and had the most engaging actuarial staff and recruiters. I based my list of preferred companies on these types of factors because I didn’t yet know what the work would entail.

Fast forward one year and I finally started getting internship offers, several of which were from property and casualty companies. I became especially interested in the property and casualty internships because of the heavy statistical focus and the incredible variety of insurance products. I ultimately went to work for CNA in Chicago in the reserving department. As a freshman, CNA had stood out as my top choice for many reasons, not the least of which were the excellent presenters/actuaries that came to our campus. I was extremely impressed by the people I worked with and for, and I knew at that point that as long as there were additional property and casualty opportunities for me I would love to continue on that path.

I interned the next summer in Towers Watson’s property and casualty practice (San Francisco). One great aspect of the property and casualty work that summer was the variety of customers I was able to serve, including cities, hospitals, corporations big and small, and even a manufacturer of parts used in plastic surgery. At Towers Watson, I was once again amazed at how sharp everyone was. Working with such intelligent and creative people left a lasting impression and was another confirmation that I was on the right path.

As you are considering different companies and career paths, it’s very important (in my opinion) to find the people and a company culture that motivate you to do your best work. The actual details and responsibilities of your job will change over time but the people that you meet and the things that you learn from each other are far more lasting.

Josh Spencer, ACAS, CERA, MAAA is the chief actuary at Brotherhood Mutual in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

As insurance and regulation needs of companies continue to evolve, the role of a consulting actuary is becoming increasingly important to business.  In addition to corporations, consultants work with insurance companies, government entities, healthcare entities and regulators. Consultants will often work directly with CEOs, CFOs and risk managers, who are concerned with minimizing the risk of their company and doing so at the optimal price.  Some consultants may frequently travel to meet with clients locally, nationally, or even internationally.  Typical assignments involve loss reserving and forecasting of insurance losses, especially those losses which are retained by a company.   Projects may also include allocations to business units, reviewing excess or reinsurance quotes, determining confidence levels, and helping with the formation of a captive.  Consulting actuaries are increasingly being engaged to complete more Enterprise Risk Management, strategic planning and predictive modeling assignments.

The key to a successful consulting career is the ability to manage client expectations and needs at the same time.  Many times a consultant may come to office expecting to work on a particular project that day, but get a call from a client who has an urgent need that must be addressed.  While this can add to the pressure of the job, more often this situation creates a challenge that is met with great enthusiasm by consultants.  Clients may think of the consultant as not only an actuary, but as a true advisor.  Consultants typically have to be able to problem solve quickly and involve creative thinking.  They also spend a lot of their time interacting with other people and are required to have excellent communication skills.  Whether through in-person presentations or conference calls, consultants must be able to share the results of their work, so that the client is able to fully understand and use the results to meet their needs.

The final aspect of being a consultant, which is different than other actuarial roles, is business development.  Consultants have to continue to ensure that their business succeeds, which is achieved by client retention, gaining new clients and increasing revenue.  Consultants keep ahead of the curve of their competitors and should constantly be selling products and services.  Successful annual sales can be a challenge and requires a significant amount of time.  Some consultant may develop a special expertise or new product to attract new clients, while others may focus on research, speaking at industry conferences, or publishing papers. While the idea of sales may be intimidating to some, many consultants view it as an appropriate challenge after finishing actuarial exams and enjoy the thrill of matching their expertise with the needs of a client or potential client.

Richard Frese, FCAS, MAAA, is a consulting actuary at Milliman in Chicago.

3 Tips for Landing an Actuarial Internship

1. Stay Ahead of the Game: The timing of when you get your resume out to

a company is critical. It’s important to know that most companies tend to finish hiring in December for the actuarial summer intern positions. This means you should plan to update and polish your resume soon after you return to school in the fall. Many companies will be posting positions in August and September, so be on the lookout for the positions you want at your top prospects.

2. Know the Company: It’s extremely important to always know information about the company with which you’re interviewing. It’s quite apparent in interviews when a candidate hasn’t done any research on the company and skirts any questions about why they’re interested in working at the company. In contrast, when candidates do look into information about the company and share what they find interesting, it shows a deep interest in the company. This can go a long way.

3. Remain Professional: Remember to always keep a professional demeanor. Some interviewing processes entail interviews with younger or newer actuaries at the company to help facilitate easier conversations. This is a great time to ask questions you might have forgotten to ask in the more ‘formal’ interview, but remember this time is still being used as an interview and being professional is still crucial.

3 Tips for Excelling at an Actuarial Internship

1. Stay Up to Date on Current Events:  Before and during your internship, it’s important to stay on top of the news and what’s happening in the world. I don’t mean just staying current in the worlds of sports or celebrities, but rather the worlds of politics, finance, healthcare, technology, and so many more. All of these can impact insurance companies since insurance touches almost every industry. In addition, issues around the world can affect the company at which you’re interning as a result of increased reinsurance and increasingly global companies. I’m not saying you need to be an expert on all things, but having a general understanding of the major news of the day will serve you well.

2. Network: Developing professional relationships with coworkers can benefit you both during and after the internship. It’s important to develop a few strong relationships. Most companies will pair you with a mentor to help you answer your day-to-day questions, while your manager might meet with you weekly. Use these meetings as an opportunity to showcase your work efforts, your ability to be a team player, and your interpersonal skills. It’s also important to build a network with other actuarial interns and new hires at the company. This group will be seeing a wide range of actuarial roles across the company as they’re learning and being trained in different capacities. By asking questions about the work they’re doing, you can expand your knowledge of what other actuaries do and start formulating ideas on which actuarial function most interests you for a future internship or a full-time starting position.

3. Utilize Feedback to Grow Professionally: Take advantage of a mid-summer review. Your summer internship will fly by quickly. Internships usually range between 10-12 weeks, and by the time you get settled in, it’ll seem like your end date is right around the corner. Your mid-summer review can help you to hone in on the skills that you still need to develop during your time with the company. Your manager might schedule one with you but if not, I suggest asking your manager if he/she would conduct one with you to give you feedback on how the summer is progressing. Most managers will discuss how your first few weeks have been going, and point out a few places you could grow and develop. I cannot stress enough the importance of taking those development suggestions to heart and trying to improve. An important attribute of a great employee is being someone who can accept constructive criticism and respond by making positive changes.

Anthony Pragovich, ACAS, is a senior actuarial analyst at Zurich North America. In addition to his role in pricing, he is a member of Zurich’s core actuarial recruiting team.

Over the next few months, Future Focus will publish a series of blog posts written by actuaries working in various fields of the actuarial profession. These blog posts will help inform you about different paths to consider as you prepare for your future career. Our first post is authored by Krista Robinson, FCAS, who provides her perspective on working as an actuary at an insurance company.  

Hello actuaries-to-be!  I’m Krista Robinson and will be giving my viewpoint of the actuarial profession from the perspective of a company actuary.  I have been at CNA Insurance for 9 years, coming here after graduating from Indiana University.  I’ve moved around to all different areas within CNA over those 9 years, and currently am working in General Liability pricing.  As you’re learning, when you decide to be an actuary you have a lot of different options for your career.  I personally think that being at an insurance company gives young actuaries an experience that is vital to your development.  When working directly for a company, you are fully engaged in their strategies at a high and low level, which gives you a great perspective on the big picture of the insurance industry.

An example of this is when working in a large account pricing area.  Large account pricing means that instead of using a rating plan for a certain state or group of people (like your personal auto insurance!), the individual account has enough claims in their past to come up with a premium using their experience specifically.  I worked in a large account pricing area for 3 years, and during that time I did a wide variety of work.  It wasn’t just focused on pricing accounts and getting the pricing to the customer.  It was also focused on how to improve our large account pricing methodologies, how to strategize what types of accounts we want to target, how to improve the tools we were using, and much more.  It gave me the ability to see how the pricing of the large accounts within a company fit into the big picture of the company strategy.  You don’t have to be a company actuary to work on large account pricing, but in order to really understand the needs and goals of the account, it’s a great benefit to understand the needs and goals of the company as well.  Being a company actuary gives that opportunity.

There are many other examples of this type of benefit across the actuarial industry.  Whether it is pricing, reserving, predictive analytics, etc., being a company actuary allows for new and experienced actuaries to learn the industry in a way that gives a great big-picture perspective.  It should definitely be on your list to consider as you finish your education!

As the future of the property and casualty insurance industry, we know that you are interested in topics related to emerging risks. Take a moment to read this blog post, shared earlier this month with CAS members, and familiarize yourself with the exciting changes and risks that are facing the insurance industry. Knowledge of these emerging risks – many of which will be addressed while you are in the early stages of your actuarial career – will be valuable as you take part in networking events and interviews with industry professionals.

It’s an exciting time to be a property and casualty actuary.

More and more new technologies are emerging, creating an ever-changing landscape in the property and casualty insurance industry. A feature story in the latest issue of the Actuarial Review, “The Risks Around the Corner,” explains the effects that evolving technology has on the insurance industry and the future risks that actuaries will have to address. Written by Steven Sullivan, the piece details the risks formed by three technological innovations: cyberspace, autonomous vehicles, and drones.

1. Battle in Cyberspace

Cyber risks can affect all forms of technology and therefore may be one of the costliest risks that the insurance industry will need to address. Breaches in cyber security are risks that are already present in day-to-day life, and the risks continue to grow rapidly. Hackers take advantage of ever-evolving technology to constantly find new ways to access the private data of major companies and their customers. As a result, companies and cyber security teams have been forced into a reactive state in which they constantly change and improve their own security measures to answer these attacks. Similarly, actuaries and the insurance industry must tailor their own methods of quantifying risks brought on by changing technology.

2. Who’s Driving Miss Daisy?

They’re not on public roads yet, but it’s only a matter of time before autonomous vehicles hit the market. The insurance industry is already starting to assess how these vehicles will change the risks and exposures on the roadway. We have learned that the technology present in these vehicles will help reduce the amount of accidents caused by human error, though questions of liability still come into play.

3. Watch the Skies!

The widespread use of commercial drones is another risk that the insurance industry will face in the future. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently working on implementing regulations for civilian and commercial drone usage, which will require insurance companies to provide policies for these aircrafts. This is new territory for insurance companies, as they must create policies that will properly provide coverage for the variety of exposures. Potentially overcrowded airspace and privacy violations are just a couple of the issues that the FAA will require insurance companies to address.

Blog post by Elizabeth Smith, CAS Manager of Publications, originally appeared on The CAS Roundtable.

4.  Your study approach from university can serve as a foundation, but it may need an overhaul…

Don’t get me wrong, university exams are tough, but actuarial exams will push your intellectual limits.  Why?  University exams are often bound by more constraints than actuarial exams.  First, there is only so much material that can be covered in a college semester.  Most of the time, an actuarial exam’s syllabus is so comprehensive that it cannot be feasibly covered in a one semester college course.  Second, university exams are often constrained to a one-to-two hour length.  Actuarial exams have no such constraints.  In fact, the average upper level exam is four hours in length.

If your study habits served you well for university exams, they’ll serve as an excellent foundation for your actuarial exam pursuits.  That being said, they’ll probably need some refining.  Since the breadth of material on an actuarial exam is much more extensive than that of a one semester college course, you’ll need to be constantly refreshing your mind, focusing on many different areas of the exam syllabus at the same time.  In addition, due to the exhausting length of these exams, you’ll need to find ways to increase your endurance, making sure you can handle being pummeled by questions relentlessly for hours.

3.  You should feel like you’ve “been there, done that” by exam day…

If you studied for Exam P using the ASM study manual, you should be familiar with its author Dr. Ostaszewski, who coined the “Been there, done that!” principle.  Come exam day, every problem that is thrown at you while you’re in the testing ring should be met with complete resolve.  You won’t scratch your head thinking about what approach to take to solve each problem or what formulas to use; you’ll just know.  With each subsequent question you encounter, you’ll confidently say to yourself, “Been there, done that!”

How do you get to this level of comfort?  Well, your exam preparations should be so extensive and exhaustive that you will have seen any and all types of problems that could possibly be thrown at you on exam day.  Not only that, but you will have practiced each and every one of those types of problems like clockwork.  Some might think the “Been there, done that!” principle is overkill.  Some might think it’s downright ridiculous.  But if you approach the actuarial exams with this mentality, you’ll pass on your first attempt, no matter how tough the exam is.

2.  You should be prepared for transitions…

During the course of your actuarial career, you will inevitably be subject to changes to the examination requirements of the CAS. Maybe a slew of new materials will be added to an exam’s syllabus.  Or maybe a completely new exam will be introduced. Honestly, the permutations are endless.

Finding ways to mitigate the stress caused by these transitions is key.  Remember that you are not in this boat alone.  The classmates or coworkers in your cohort will be experiencing these actuarial growing pains with you.  Find ease in discussing these changing requirements with your cohort and brainstorming ways to conquer them.

1.  Your friends and family probably won’t understand…

Unless your friends and family have sat for actuarial exams, they probably won’t understand the commitment and journey this process truly is.  You’re about to dedicate years of your life to studying and working simultaneously.  Oh, and you should try to have a personal life, too.  The journey is oftentimes daunting, but your friends and family most likely won’t see it that way.  To them, you’re smart and a good test taker.  They won’t be able to comprehend that despite your natural abilities, you’ll still need hundreds of hours of time to prepare for each and every exam.  They will especially find it tough to grasp that despite your most valiant efforts to prepare for each exam, sometimes you will still fail.  Can you blame your friends and family for thinking like this?  No, absolutely not.  Unless they’ve encountered these exams firsthand, they’ll never truly comprehend the sacrifice needed to become a credentialed actuary.

So, if your friends and family don’t understand, how will you cope?  You must cherish your actuarial friends.  They’re on the front line with you, fighting the good fight.  They’ve seen what you’ve seen.  They’ve felt what you’ve felt.  And, most importantly, they know that while the process can at times be formidable, it is a highly gratifying and worthwhile achievement.