How Does an Actuary Spend the Workday?

What Is an Actuary?

An actuary is a risk manager. He works with statistics to assess the risks of certain things happening and finding creative ways to prevent them from happening. Actuaries work in almost all fields in the business world and are among the top five best paid positions in the world to have. They work for groups like universities, banks, investment firms, accounting firms and insurance companies. They model statistical scenarios of various decisions their company can make and predict the effects that decision might have, and then find ways to avoid those effects which are unwanted. This requires a great deal of mathematical know-how, including advanced statistics, calculus and algebra. To become an actuary a person must pass a series of exams administered by the Society of Actuaries, and then pass another exam biannually to maintain her status as an actuary.

Misconceptions About Actuaries

The greatest misconception about actuaries is that they are just number-crunchers and math wizards. The calculations that actuaries perform must take into account how people will react in any given situation. This means that actuaries must have a very good understanding of human nature as well as individual and group human behavior. To ensure that the solutions an actuary develops are correctly implemented, he must have very good communication and people skills as well. While this job requires a high degree of mathematical skill, it also requires an individual with social understanding.

How an Actuary Spends the Workday

An actuary works a 40-hour week, from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. It's one of the few jobs still around that do not require weekends, nights or extra hours. When arriving at work in the morning, the actuary will head to her office and check her emails and project lists. There are deadlines involved, so typically she'll pick the one that's most urgent and get to work. Usually she will receive a copy of a business proposal that will change some facet of how her company does business. She must review the proposal and identify all the key factors that will change as well as those factors that will be affected by or could affect the change. She then develops a mathematical model to assess how these factors interact with one another to determine the ultimate consequences of the business proposal. With this done, the actuary heads to a meeting of her immediate superiors and presents her findings in plain, easy-to-understand terms. She then presents possible changes in the business proposal that could result in a more beneficial outcome for the company. Depending on the complexity of the proposal, this process may take days or months. When it is done, she goes to her work listing and gets started on the next proposal.