Ofo Fusitu’a

BUS 1010

5/6/2021

Actuary

The college major I chose to research was Business Administration. There were quite a

few ideal occupations that one can utilize a Business Administration degree with, however the

one that stood out the most to me was the job of an Actuary. According to the focus2career,

“Actuaries calculate insurance company premium rates and policy conditions. To do this they

organize and statistically analyze data to calculate probabilities of death, sickness, injury and

financial loss from fire, theft and accidents.”

The job tasks of an actuary are to work with statistics. They are to calculate statistical

rates of probable death, accidents, sickness, disability and retirement for the purpose to provide

the number of payments to be made by insurance companies. Using past statistical data,

probability tables are made to predict the number of deaths, accidents, disasters and

unemployment to be expected in the time to come. Actuaries also design insurance and pension

plans. They’re able to calculate the amount of insurance premiums that the clients must pay in

order to guarantee coverage as well as profits for the company. By using computers and

statistical models, they’re able to project future insurance needs based off of demographic data.

There isn’t much of an entry level position. In order to be an actuary, one must earn a

degree and pass certain certifications in order be become one. This includes a heavy amount of

math courses and some business courses as well.

undergraduate actuarial science degree or a three-to-four-year bachelor’s degree in either

commerce or economics. If one’s degree is in an unrelated field, they would need to add on to

their portfolio with business and statistic courses. Once in your senior year, one can apply for an

actuarial body and start on the certification process by taking courses and passing the exams.

There are about 2 exams, and some jobs will hire if you pass at least one exam and prep for the

next exam. In order to be an actuary, one will need a strong mathematical background as well as

a general business background.

According to Investopedia, as of May 2019, the median annual pay for an actuary was

$108,350. That amount is more than 3 times the national average, which was set at 35,977 in

2019, which was reported by The Bureau of Labor statistic. In 2017, they averaged the median

worker to make about $865 weekly for full time workers, which is still lower than an actuary

because the average actuarial made $52.09/hr. which would be about $2083.6 weekly, assuming

they work 40 hrs. weekly.

As far as this career is concerned, I do see the industry growing in turn making this a

more promising and stable career for folks who enjoy statistics/mathematics as well as business.

Despite the extra examinations, I believe if one is great with math as well as statistics, this would

be quite an easy career path to choose. The requirements include an undergraduates degree as

well as extra certification. I believe there will always be a need for one especially with a growing

society.

James C.H. Anderson (1931 – 1993) born in Winnipeg, Canada on February 14, 1993

was a well-known Actuarial. He attended then graduated from the University of Manitoba in

1952 where he had acquired actuarial experience by working for 2 insurance companies. There
he was able to work and complete the early Society examinations. Upon graduation he went and

worked at Northwestern mutual which was located in Milwaukee. In 1959, James joined the

Atlantic consulting firm where he discovered new discounted cashflow methodology for pricing

life insurance products. With such an innovative development he was able to win a triennial prize

for society of actuaries. This methodology is still used today internationally to size life insurance

products and to value life insurance companies. Shortly he worked for Georgia international

insurance company where his developmental plan for life insurance was put into action. He then

made his company and its subsidiaries an international force across the U.K, Canada and

Bermuda.

In the 1970’s he introduced Universal life insurance which was a revolutionary product

that improved significantly the value of the life insurance for policy holders. Universal life

represents more than 30% of the policies that are sold in the U.S. and a significant percentage of

policies sold worldwide. Following his death he was elected to insurance hall of fame in 2001 for

his uncanny ability to predict trends.

The Pros to being an actuary would have to be that you can tailor to specifically to you on

your career trajectory. You can utilize your experiences gained from different actuary jobs that

you’ve done or from the mathematical or statistical knowledge that you’ve gained over the

course of learning the position. The cons to that would be that there is very little room for error.

Due to the high volume of dollars that are invested, if you make a mistake you could cost

potentially millions or even billions of dollars.

Personally I do not find myself to be a great fit for this position. At first I thought I would

be a good fit, however after actually learning more I feel like the no room for error would be
very stressful for me. Also, I enjoy math and statistics, however after learning more about it I

realized that I do not enjoy it that much to where I would make a career out of it.
Sources:

- https://www.focus2career.com/LoggedIn/OccupationOverview.cfm?

OccupationId=9994&ReturnTo=OccupationSearchByName.cfm&Unique={ts

%20%272021-05-06%2002:07:15%27}

- https://www.geteducated.com/career-center/detail/actuary/

- https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/011315/whats-average-salary-actuary.asp

- https://www.google.com/search?

client=safari&rls=en&q=average+pay+american&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

- https://www.soa.org/globalassets/assets/library/research/transactions-of-society-of-

actuaries/1990-95/1993/january/tsa93v4520.pdf

- https://www.insurancehalloffame.org/james-c-h-anderson

- https://careers.alot.com/career-paths/the-pros-and-cons-of-being-an-actuary--14006