Good luck to everyone!

Please list:

1. Name of exam
2. Number of hours studied
3. Any other details such as score, study materials used, or study method

Hey y'all! I recently got let go in a reorg from a health insurer. I have 3 pending 4 offers right now (I had 4 pending 5 but already said no to one). Right now I have 4 YOE within health. While working in health, I realized it's not as stable as I initially thought with all the legislation regularly coming through. We had 12 hour days regularly and I really value work life balance. However, it's where I already have experience and I'm not sure if I want to or should switch industries. I wanted to get y'alls thoughts on some of the offers I have now.

1. Health Insurance with lowest base salary and fully remote- I think this is the most relevant to my experience. I would get to do a rotational program which was something I wanted in my last role that we didn't have. I worry about if ACA ever goes away and my prior experience becomes irrelevant or if we ever get universal health care and then there's way fewer health insurers.

2. Health Consulting with middle base salary and mostly remote but some travel to the office in another state - I definitely have the personality for consulting but I have colleagues that worked at this firm and said it's hard to get study time at all. I'm near ASA and want to move on to FSA exams and get fully credentialed. I also have the same worries about the future of health insurance as with the insurer offer.

3. Workers Comp Consulting with highest base salary hybrid with office 30 min away - This would obviously be a big switch. Their claims data is mostly medical claims, so they are interested in adding me to the team based on my health background. They support SOA exams and just ask that we do the general insurance FSA track. I met with some FSAs during the interview process and they all said there was no issue with exams and study time. Everyone I met with was really great and this company definitely had the best culture. It's a smaller firm and they offer rotations when possible if it's something you're interested in; I asked people about this and several people on the team confirmed they've been able to rotate. I also believe I'd benefit from a hybrid schedule.

4. Health Consulting with no salary yet but likely between 1 and 2 and fully remote - This is a small consulting firm that works mainly with DOIs. They are a small team and I do worry about actually getting exam support since they offer "unlimited" study time. Of course, same concerns with this as I have with #2.

If anyone has made a switch from health to workers comp or can speak to insurer vs consulting, pleaseeeeeee give me some feedback. Right now I'm the most drawn to number 3 due to the team culture but I don't want to throw away my years of experience due to not knowing better.

TIA just sent out info from the SOA how a life actuary has to take CP 351 along with the 2 ILA exams in order to qualify as a signing actuary.

1. Strange of the SOA to only reveal this information now.

2. How much does this matter? If one is still early career, how much stock should they put into this if they were planning on using a different exam for their 3rd exam? Does the lack of being able to sign hinder an actuary's future career?

I have seen lots of debate regarding which study materials are good prep, as it seems the syllabus has been changed quite a bit. Is Coaching Actuaries + supplementing with source material good enough preparation? I’ve seen so many that swear by Mahler but it seems like it could be a little dated. Any suggestions are welcome, thanks!

I've been trying to integrate Python into my work and curious what tools/libraries people in the field are actually using day-to-day, whether it's for reserving, pricing, experience studies, data wrangling, or anything else.

Bonus points if you share a quick note on *how* you use it or what problem it solved for you. Always more useful than just a name!

TIA 🙏

Hi, I have probably a silly question, but I’m hoping someone can help me. I just came back from maternity leave and will be rotating soon, so I am in the process of updating my resume. Prior to my mat leave, I completed the three FSA modules to get the transition credit.

What exactly is the transition credit for? Is it for a specific exam, and if so what is it called? I’m just not sure what to add on my resume if not the names of the modules themselves.

Thank you!

I know they are coming this Friday. Anyone knows what time?

(Sorry feeling really nervous!)

Will you transform severity? Is it acceptable to transform a target variable?

I am in a team that does a lot of asset management stuff within an insurance company. I had built a model for capital management that was very beneficial and made a lot of waves. when it was supposed to be rolled out i accdentally ran it with stale parameters. I explained the major discrepancy and why if fixed the results would be ok the next quarter. however upon further looking back I found I had another set of stale parameters. effectively imagine I created the model but ran my own model wrong because of 2 parameters. I told folks about the first parameter because it was very impactful, the impact of the second one is much less. should I disclose it? I understand why you would say yes but I could at this point really have plausible deniability and there is a very little chance it will be discovered. also ultimately I have personal reasons why I really need to progress in my career (not worth getting into a sob story of one’s personal life).

After over 9 months of searching, I am proud to say, I have finally landed an internship!! It is with an agent branch in Statefarm, but… it is non-actuarial.

The internship itself is for customer-care, and this was one of the only ones I could get which I am grateful for but I am not sure how I can pivot this towards my career. I have passed 2 exams and am entering my last year of college, and I would like to go down the CAS route. But with this internship, as I have said before, there is no actuary/data work being performed. The tasks of this job mainly revolve around “ managing incoming calls,
scheduling appointments, assisting with administrative tasks, and assisting the Executive Team in analytical reporting. “

How can I direct this job where I can allow myself to set up an actuarial future? The branch owner does know I want to become an actuary in the future, but when’s a good time within my time there that I can speak about it with them? This internship starts this month and it also goes through the school year, so it’s not just for the summer.

At the end of the day, how could I pivot this position towards actuarial work to align with my goals? I feel I already got my “foot in the door” with the Insurance side, I would just like to know how I can provide this branch my time and skills where I can also allow myself to grow into the career I want to pursue.

Hey everyone! I’m entering my last year of college with 2 exams passed and planning to go down the CAS route, and I’m trying to decide when the best time would be to take MAS-I. This summer is going to be pretty busy for me. I’ll be training jiu-jitsu, lifting regularly, working full-time as an intern for an insurance company (non-actuarial role), taking an online summer course, and I’ll also have family visiting from overseas for most of the summer. I know a lot of people juggle even more while studying, and I’m definitely willing to make sacrifices where needed, but I also want to be realistic about the workload since I know MAS-I is very study intensive. For context, I didn’t pass either P or FM on my first attempt (got 5s on both), but I passed on my second tries after about 5 months of inconsistent studying for each. Because of that, I want to make sure I give myself enough time to properly prepare, pass, and strengthen my resume for entry-level actuarial positions. I go back to school in September and will also be working part-time then. What would you guys recommend for timing? Also, is it okay to put “sitting for MAS-I” on a resume before officially registering for the exam?

can you explain how to figure out how to take an exam? I’m trying to take FM before I go back to college but I live in Nebraska and don’t see any testing locations around me. Thank you!

Hi, I’m an FIA with 3yrs of non life experience in India. Wanted to get suggestions on few countries in terms of the work exposure, savings potential and quality of life, ease of getting a job/work visa.

How does UK, Singapore, Dubai, Australia/NZ, Bermuda compare and what will it take to get there?

Also, does working in a GCC in India for long stall career progression as it’s mainly offshore support work?

I find I study much better when I actually discuss and talk about topics I’m learning about, and also setting goals is easier when there is some form of accountability with the other person.

I’d be looking to meet bi-weekly to explore what we learned, clear up difficulties with certain topics and maybe even do questions together.

My plan is to start studying in June and decide whether to register for the summer exam or fall exam (likely the fall). Please reach out if you’re doing the same!

Currently going through the DPAS module. There seems to be no logic behind any of what's in the slides or how it's presented.

One example: Slide 48 tells you to read Section 16.4 of Understanding Actuarial Practice, then gives you four bullet points from Chapter 14. Slide 49 tells you to read 16.1 to 16.3 and 16.6. Then slide 50 tells you to read 16.4. So the order they want you to read it in is

16.4 (and maybe ch. 14 but that's not super clear??)
16.1, 16.2, 16.3
16.6
16.5

Why are we skipping around like this with no rhyme or reason? I feel like I'm going crazy.

Hi everyone,

I am currently building ACTUNEO, an open-source actuarial Python library focused on African and emerging market actuarial applications.

The goal is to create localized actuarial infrastructure that bridges traditional actuarial science with modern data science tools while addressing African market realities such as multi-currency environments, localized mortality assumptions, pension analytics, and insurance modeling.

ACTUNEO is built in Python and integrates with:

• Pandas
• NumPy
• SciPy
• Plotly
• Scikit-learn

Why this project exists

Many actuarial libraries are built primarily around European or North American assumptions and datasets. African actuaries often adapt foreign assumptions due to limited localized tooling and open actuarial datasets.

ACTUNEO aims to help address this gap through open-source collaboration.

Current Progress

The project is currently building foundational modules including:

• Mortality tables and survival models
• Interest theory and financial mathematics
• Life contingencies
• Pension calculations
• African macroeconomic data integration

Looking for Contributors

I am looking for:

• Actuaries and actuarial students to validate formulas and assumptions
• Python developers to improve architecture and testing
• Data scientists interested in actuarial modeling
• Technical writers to improve documentation and tutorials

Repository:
ACTUNEO GitHub Repository

Several issues will be tagged with:

• good first issue
• help wanted
• documentation

When do we think the March results will come out?