Rutgers Actuarial Club

Table of Contents

Overview of an Actuary

  • What is An Actuary
  • Why become an Actuary

About the Rutgers Actuarial Club

  • Purpose
  • What We Do
  • Meeting Information
  • Mailing List

For Employers

More About the Actuarial Career

  • General
  • Required Skills
  • Examples of Actuarial Work

Fellowship Process

  • Overview
  • Actuarial Exams
  • VEE Requirements

Additional Actuarial Resources

2021-2022 E-Board

Academic Advisor

 

Overview of an Actuary

What is an Actuary?

An actuary is a business professional who deals with the measurement and management of risk and uncertainty. Actuaries traditionally specialize in the insurance industry, with typical roles including calculating premiums (pricing), and calculating insurance reserves (reserving). A candidate must undergo a rigorous fellowship process to become a credentialed actuary.

Why become an Actuary?

As quoted from http://www.beanactuary.org/:

  • Top-Ranked. Actuary has consistently been rated one of the top jobs in the United States.
  • Head start. Actuaries earn great starting salaries that can double within the first five years.
  • Job security. Actuaries enjoy certainty in uncertain times. We're always in demand as the world confronts risk.
  • Impressive impact. Actuaries participate in high-level business decision-making and solve real problems in every industry.
  • Life in balance. More than a fulfilling career, being an actuary allows you to maintain a low-stress, highly sought-after work/life balance.

More:

 

About the Rutgers Actuarial Club

Purpose

The Actuarial Club's purpose is to guide the efforts of Rutgers undergraduate students to becoming actuaries. We provide training in technical and soft skills, networking opportunities with students, recruiters, and those working in the actuarial professions, and aid in the actuarial examination process.

What We Do

The Rutgers Actuarial Club provides aspiring actuaries at Rutgers University the guidance, resources, and opportunities to start their actuarial careers.

  • Career Development Opportunities
    • We host an annual Fall Actuarial Career Fair with 10+ companies seeking to employ Rutgers students for actuarial intern and actuarial entry-level analyst positions
    • We frequently invite working actuaries from varying companies, industries and levels to provide networking/recruiting sessions and informational sessions for club members
    • Senior club members lead resume critique sessions and mock actuarial interviews
  • Actuarial Exam Preparation
    • We prepare our members for actuarial exams by providing study materials, assistance, course recommendations, and general guidance
    • Tutoring in actuarial exam material
  • Technical Skills
    • ○ We provide training for members in Excel
  • Soft Skills
    • ○ We provide opportunities for members to improve important actuarial soft skills including presentation skills, communication skills and teamwork
    • ○ We run multiple activities to provide our members the confidence and professionalism to communicate effectively with recruiters in various professional settings

Meeting Information:

 

Mailing List:

The Rutgers Actuarial Club sends weekly emails to our members to keep everyone up to date with events and activities. To be included into our mailing list, please fill out the form below.

Mailing List Form: http://eepurl.com/guWZzT

If you have any questions about the actuarial career, the fellowship process, courses to take at Rutgers, etc., please feel free to email the club email at actuaryrutgers@gmail.com

Our club resources, meeting schedules, slides, etc are uploaded to the Rutgers Actuarial Club Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0r2sMOQEdhIRmVmLU9ZQW1veUk

Like us on Facebook:

 https://www.facebook.com/actuaryrutgers/

We hope to see you soon!

 

For Employers

If you are interested in attending our annual Fall Rutgers Actuarial Career Fair or are interested in holding an information session or workshop for the Rutgers Actuarial Club, feel free to reach out to us at actuaryrutgers@gmail.com.

 

More About the Actuarial Career

General

Actuaries in the U.S. obtain fellowship from one of two actuarial societies: the Society of Actuaries (SOA) or the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS). The SOA focuses on what is broadly considered “Life” Insurance, and includes actuarial specializations in Life Insurance, Health Insurance, Pensions, Investments, Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), and most recently, General Insurance; in contrast, the CAS specializes solely in Property and Casualty (P&C) Insurance. Actuaries are mostly found in insurance, reinsurance, and consulting firms, but due to the versatile blend of technical and business knowledge, actuaries are also able to easily transition into other industries with relative ease.

Required Skills

Actuaries use analytical skills to decipher technical data and, perhaps more importantly, use their business background to understand and communicate the implications of their technical findings. As a result, to excel at their work, actuaries need both a strong mathematical and business background. In addition, in recent years the industry has shifted such that actuaries need to develop stronger technical skills; programming abilities in languages such as R, SAS, SQL, VBA, etc. are highly valued and widely used in industry.

Examples of Actuarial Work

Area

Application

Banking and Financial Services

help banks and financial services companies with product portfolio, capital management and risk analysis

Consulting

advise clients on actuarial financial risks, usually associated with employee benefits and insurance

Enterprise Risk Management

provide tools, techniques and perspective to manage operational risks at an enterprise or corporate level

Entrepreneurial Actuaries

represents a wide range of opportunities for actuaries who desire to set up and run their own business

Environmental Finance

apply finance techniques and practices to environmental issues

Health and Retirement Financing

offer advice on aspects of social insurance including funding levels and population projections

Investments and Fund Management

focus on asset risks for asset managers but also contribute in areas such as hedging strategy, derivatives structuring and structured finance

Pension

certify the contributions needed to fund a pension plan

Predictive Analytics

use modeling and data analysis techniques on large data sets to discover predictive patterns and relationships for business use

Pricing

determine product features and pricing

Product Line or Segment Risk Management

perform risk management functions for a specific line of business for an insurance company

Reinsurance

perform traditional actuarial duties for a reinsurer that would accept risk from a direct insurance company

Sales and Marketing

help set policies, messages and compensation levels for those directly involved in marketing

Senior Management

provide broad business and management oversight for an organization’s most senior decision makers

Valuation

perform experience studies, cash flow testing and other tasks to set the amount of reserve and capital held by an insurer

Wealth Management and Financial Planning

contribute skills and expertise to wealth management firms and individuals (rather than to insurance companies)

Source for table: https://www.soa.org/future-actuaries/career-paths/

 

Fellowship Process

Overview

The CAS and SOA award fellowship credentials upon completing a set of requirements. Follow the links below to understand the requirements of each fellowship.

CAS Fellowship: http://www.casact.org/admissions/process/

SOA Fellowship:  https://www.soa.org/Education/Exam-Req/edu-fsa-req.aspx

Despite the different requirements for each fellowship track, the first few requirements overlap between the two societies; therefore, it is possible to start preparing for fellowship in college by taking the preliminary actuarial exams and fulfilling VEEs, then deciding upon a specific fellowship track at a later date.

Actuarial Exams

The most significant step to earning an actuarial credential is through passing actuarial exams. The topics of actuarial exams range from probability theory and financial mathematics to the understanding and evaluation of actuarial models

While in college, students are typically expected to pass at least one exam prior to obtaining an internship, and pass at least two exams prior to graduation for full-time employment. Passing exams are not an initial requirement for an actuarial internship or entry level position but demonstrate a student’s dedication to the career, facilitating the process of employment.

Certain courses at Rutgers can help prepare students for several of the preliminary actuarial exams:

Exam Name:

Exam Topic:

Rutgers Courses:

Exam 1/P (Probability)

Probability Theory

01:640:477 - Mathematical Theory of Probability

Exam 2/FM
(Financial Mathematics)

Interest Theory

01:640:285 - Intro to Interest Theory

33:390:310 – Financial Management for Finance Majors

Exam 3/IFM
(Investments and Financial Markets)

Financial Derivatives

01:640:485 - Math Finance

33:390:420 - Derivatives

01:220:413 – Financial Economics

Exam LTAM
(Long Term Actuarial Models)

Contingency Models

01:640:486 - Life Contingencies I

01:640:487 - Life Contingencies II
Exam MAS-1/STAM (Modern Actuarial Statistics) Statistics, Modeling, Stochastic Processes

01:640:478 – Introduction to Stochastic Processes

01:640:481 – Mathematical Theory of Statistics

01:220:400 – Advanced Time Series and Financial Econometrics

33:136:485 – Time Series Modeling for Business

01:960:463 – Regression Methods

 

VEE Requirements

Validation by Educational Experience (VEE) require that students complete SOA approved university courses under the subjects of economics, mathematical statistics, and account and finance. These requirements should be fulfilled during a student’s undergraduate studies.

More about VEEs:

https://www.soa.org/Education/General-Info/2016-vee-requirements.aspx

A list of approved VEE courses at Rutgers can be found here:

https://store.soa.org/VEESchoolSearch.aspx?VEE=displayonly

*please filter by New Jersey, and then by Rutgers University New Brunswick

 

Additional Actuarial Resources

 

2022-2023 E-Board:

President:            Max Lieberman

Vice-President:   Julie Kim

Secretary:           Joe Santos

Treasurer:           Abhijit Singh 

Public Relations Chair:    Sukriti Kulkarni

 

Academic Advisor:

Professor Joshua Salamon

https://www.math.rutgers.edu/component/comprofiler/userprofile/jss402