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What is an Actuary?

“Actuaries are business professionals who apply their knowledge of mathematics– particularly of probability, statistics and risk theory – to real-life financial problems involving future uncertainty. These uncertainties are usually associated with life insurance, property and casualty insurance, annuities, pension or other employee benefit plans, or providing evidence in courts of law on the value of lost future earnings.”

  • They evaluate the likelihood of future adverse events, and design creative ways to reduce the likelihood and decrease the impact of adverse events that do occur.

Why Become an Actuary?

  • Actuaries find themselves at the top of several job rankings year after year, with the most recent instances reported on CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and US News.
  • According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition:
    • “Employment of actuaries is expected to increase by 21 percent over the 2008—18 period, which is much faster than the average for all occupations. While employment in the insurance industry—the largest employer of actuaries—will experience some growth, greater job growth will occur in other industries, such as financial services and consulting.”
    • “The desire to contain healthcare costs will provide job opportunities for actuaries who will be needed to evaluate the risks associated with new medical issues, such as the impact of new diseases.”
    • “Also, because actuarial skills are increasingly seen as useful to other industries that deal with risk, such as the airline and the banking industries, additional job openings may be created in these industries.”
  • Additional information on salary survey (including entry-level actuarial jobs) conducted by D.W. Simpson.

Where Do Actuaries Work?

  • Potential employers are insurance and reinsurance companies (life or property and casualty), consulting firms, investment and commercial banks

How Do I Become an Actuary?

  • There are three basic requirements - education, experience, and the successful completion of a series of qualifying examinations administered by various professional bodies.
  • Actuaries earn professional designations (such as Associateship or Fellowship) based on the organization they belong to and their status in the professional examination system
  • Some of the North American  professional actuarial organizations are:

What Aptitude or Interests Do I Need to Become a Successful Actuary?

  • Enjoy mathematics and problem solving
  • Good business sense
  • Effective communication skills

Why Study Actuarial Science at University of Waterloo?

  • UW has the largest English language actuarial science program in North America and one of the largest university-based actuarial science programs in the world.
  • UW’s actuarial science faculty members conduct leading-edge research and are well-known internationally.
  • UW’s actuarial science faculty members maintain strong ties with the professional actuarial organizations:
    • Professor Robert Brown: President of the SoA 2000-01 and President of the CIA 1990-91
    • Professor Harry Panjer: President of the SoA 2002-03 and President of the CIA 1997-98
    • Professor Mary Hardy: Board of Governors of SoA 2004-07
  • UW has the largest co-operative program (integrates academic studies with relevant work experience) in the world
    • Actuarial students earn the highest salaries of all UW co-operative students
    • International visa students can be considered for co-operative programs
  • Majors: Actuarial Science, Actuarial Science with Finance Option, Double or Joint Honours with mathematics programs such as Statistics, AM, C&O, CS, PM    
  • UW's M.Act.Sc program is the only program in North America that is accredited by the UK's Institute of Actuaries.
  • UW offers numerous University Entrance Scholarships and upper year scholarships exclusively for actuarial science students each term.
  • Well established undergraduate exchange programs with universities in other countries including Heriot-Watt U. (Scotland), City U. (England), Univ. of Hong Kong, ETH (Switzerland), ITAM (Mexico).

Questions?

  • Further inquiry on actuarial science program at UW, please contact the Actuarial Science Undergraduate Advisor Alice Pfeifer-Hanov


Last Modified:  Friday 15 April 2011
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