r/actuary

I'm an England fan who picked Mexico in my World Cup bracket to emotionally hedge. In what should have been one of the most exciting games I've seen for months, maybe years, making me happy until England's next game, I felt and feel dead. I didn't care about the result or action. Yellow cards, red cards, penalties, goals. Sport is for excitement and escapism. Even if Mexico had won, I prefer feeling alive with disappointment to not caring. I want to scream at the screen when Mexico get a dodgy penalty on VAR or when Quansah gets a red. I want the ecstasy of Anthony Gordon getting a penalty from being quicker of thought and feet than anyone else. The sheer agony and anticipation of 10-man England surviving at 2-1 then 3-2.

So I doubt I'll be emotionally hedging such events going forward. I have a dull, predictable, safe, life I'm very thankful for, and don't need to hedge the excitement out of it.

Curious on how many exams people graduated with. If you were studying for an exam then graduate and pass it shortly after graduation (within 2 ish months the), include that in your total.

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Looking for some advice from people further along in their actuarial careers!

I’m currently only a few exams away from ASA and have a few years of actuarial experience. After having my first child, I decided to leave the workforce to be a stay-at-home parent. At this point, I’m not sure when (or if) I’ll return to work full-time. It could be in 5 years or it could be 10 years.
I have time to study but I don’t have an employer sponsoring exam fees or study materials, so the financial aspect is definitely something I need to consider.
I’m wondering whether it still makes sense to continue pursuing exams, potentially all the way to FSA, during this period.

Is it worth investing the money to finish ASA/FSA if I may not return to the workforce for several years?

If you saw an applicant with an FSA without corresponding years of experience because of a 5–10 year career gap due to being a stay-at-home parent, would that be seen as a red flag?

Part of my hesitation is that I’m not sure how difficult it would be to find a job after being out of the workforce for a long time. There’s also a possibility that I may ultimately decide on a different career path. Given that exams are expensive, I’m wondering whether pursuing FSA is still a worthwhile investment, or whether it would make more sense to pursue other study or certifications as backup plan.

I went to FAC in June, met a girl there, and we hit it off. Before we left, she gave me her number.

I texted her afterward, and to my surprise, she agreed to meet up. I figured if I'm going to do this, I might as well commit, so I bought a plane ticket to fly and see her.

What started as an FAC connection turned into an actual date. Passed exams --> Got FSA --> Secured a date

Also, FAC is actually a lot of fun. If you're single, don't lose the opportunity to meet new people. Worst case, you make some new actuarial friends. Best case... you end up booking a flight for a date.

I'm English (heritage) FCAS. I will be happy if England beat Mexico in the World Cup. We have a work pool. So I chose Mexico to win to risk manage my happiness. Like in investing (or insurance!) where you try to minimize volatility. Has anyone heard of such a concept? Do you think its valid? Am I a traitor?

(I'm putting in this subreddit because I respect your brains. r/happiness doesn't allow questions, only scientific studies, and many subreddit just have idiots replying.)

EDIT: It's called "Emotional Hedging" and has a wiki entry here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_hedge . Thanks to u/deadpoolvswolverine

From the latest post-exam summary for Exam 8: “In one question, candidates were required to calculate the limited second moment of a lognormal distribution. This formula was inadvertently not included on the formula
sheet provided.”

This would have been caught if a single reviewer had attempted this question before it was put on the exam. Do people pre-test these exams at all? If so, how is it that a question which is practically unanswerable was able to make it on the exam without being caught?

The Spring 2026 Exam 7 raw pass rate was 23.7%. That deserves an explanation from the Examination Committee.

As a repeat candidate (my last three results were 5, 5, and 4), I don't believe the issue is simply that the exam is more difficult.

The problem is that the nature of the questions seems to have changed.

Instead of primarily assessing reserving concepts and professional judgment, more questions appear to focus on reverse reasoning—requiring candidates to reconstruct information or infer intermediate steps before they can even begin the actuarial analysis. This adds complexity without clearly measuring better actuarial competence.

Another concern is the wording. Some questions feel written in an individual actuary's internal working language rather than the standardized terminology used throughout the syllabus. Candidates spend valuable exam time trying to interpret what the examiner means instead of demonstrating reserving knowledge.

Professional exams should challenge actuarial thinking—not candidates' ability to decode ambiguous wording or solve puzzles under severe time pressure.

This is not a request for an easier exam.

It is a request for transparency. A professional examination should reward actuarial expertise, not familiarity with the examiner's personal way of thinking.

I urge the Examination Committee to initiate a formal investigation into the Spring 2026 Exam 7 sitting and publicly address candidates’ concerns.

Honestly, don't like the line of work that I am in. My internship was on the other side and found it more interesting and fun to work on. Would you just start taking exam on the other side? Would many of the skills and knowledge be transferable?

Hey everyone, I'm doing personal research on how accessible insurance products are for new immigrants in the US, and I keep hitting a pricing paradox I'd love the actuarial view on.

Most carriers don't count foreign driving experience - someone moving from India or Europe with 10+ clean years gets priced near new-driver levels, often 2-3x standard. Meanwhile the population studies I can find show recent immigrants have lower serious crash rates than long-term residents, not higher.

So for people who've worked personal auto pricing: is the treatment of these drivers based on loss experience someone actually studied, or is it a conservative default because foreign history can't be verified?

Hi,

To those who have already learned all the material or have passed the ALTAM exam, is it feasible to jump around in the learn section of coaching actuaries, or do you recommend that I go through the chapters like how CA arranged?

Because in FAM, I remember the short term chapters were kind of a world each on its own and one could easily jump around even during the learn stage if they wanted to.

I was wondering if ALTAM coaching actuaries learn section should be tackled as it is, or can I jump between chapters?

I don't have a degree in actuarial science, and am a career changer. Sorry if this is a silly question, but I wanted to know if the material build on top of each other in ALTAM as you progress through the chapters, or if it is more like the short term section in the FAM exam where each chapter is its own and aren't really connected to the others.

Hello, I’m approaching my ACAS soon and am starting to question whether it’s worth going further to FCAS. I’m wondering what people are thinking the future for actuaries looks like. I’m someone who right now is very interested in chasing higher salaries. Will this profession still be lucrative in the future?

Trying to get a sense of how draining FAP is compared to ATPA.

If you've taken ATPA and FAP:

1. How does the time commitment compare? Did you need all 4 days for either/both?

2. How does the difficulty compare?

3. How does the stress compare?

4. Lastly, what was your confidence like after submitting it?

Looking back, I don't even know why ATPA felt so awful. The content wasn't that complicated, at all.

I think my issue was I wasn't 100% clear on all of the rules, and it messed with my head that I couldn't see the rubric they were using to grade me. And then waiting for the grade... Knowing that if I failed, I really wouldn't have a great path toward doing better on the next attempt. Thankful for passing on first try, but I feel for those of you who failed.

I always wonder how many of us are pursuing FIRE, so it's cool to read about other actuaries who did it.

Hello! I run the popular science and math youtube video up and atom. I am making a video about Survival Analysis and am looking for an expert to help fact-check the script. The video goes into John Graunt and his invention of Life Tables, survival and hazard functions, censoring, the Kaplan-Meier method, the bathtub curve and the Cox model.

You will of course be compensated for your work. If you're interested, please DM me on here. Thanks!

Jade

It's been kind of annoying not having a clean, easy place to just quickly check the yield curve, so I made one for myself and just keep it pinned in chrome. The thing I think I'll use most is the quick views above the chart for quarterly reporting to get a sense of where my company's insurance blocks might move (I'm at a life/annuity shop).

Was curious what people who actually watch curves (or other metrics I have on here) think. Are those the right lookback windows? Is layering 4 curves at once useful or does it just get noisy? Keeping ads off so I feel like it runs pretty smooth. Open to suggestions if something's missing or misleading.

Hi everyone! I have my FAM exam on July 7 in the afternoon, and I'm honestly feeling a bit lost.

I'm in a decent spot with the long-term section. I understand about 80% of it fairly well and only have three subsections left in the final chapter. The problem is the short-term section. I've spent almost all of my study time on long-term, so I've barely touched short-term.

I have the next few days completely off from work, so I can study full-time until the exam. My goal is to maintain what I've learned in long-term while cramming as much short-term as possible, but I'm not sure what the most effective approach is.

If you were in my shoes, how would you spend these last few days? Would you keep reviewing long-term every day, or put almost all of your effort into short-term? Any tips, tricks, or study strategies that helped you in a similar situation would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much in advance!