COL in NYC is very high, and actuarial salaries aren't that much higher (high 60s to high 70s, minimal bonus). Actuaries are actual professionals with a career. I doubt quantitative finance roles in NYC have this same work culture. Note that this subreddit is primarily US/CAN focused, however all countries are free to participate. They are 2 totally different professions. 12. PQ (doing specialist): £60-70k. Capital tends to have the least spikes, pricing can have spikes during rate revision periods (especially for Employers Liability/business insurance). Vs. They’ll both get you to your ASA all the same. Data science has way more opportunities at entry level and companies nowadays do still hire Data Scientists despite the pandemic. From things I remember seeing on the old AO, the consensus was PAK had a slight edge in flashcards while TIA had a slight be edge in study manuals. Passing the ERM exam would also give you CERA. I was talking with my dad and he said the Series 7 exam to become a stockbroker was the third toughest after the Bar and the CPA exam. You can easily stay as an actuary your entire life, or you can switch to whatever insurance profession you want later on. Doctors and lawyers are similar for their respective fields. Quants vs Actuary. 80% of Data science is data management and less than 5% modeling. I believe robotics will be something that grows in the job market and pay for years to come. There are inches and inches of readings, and study guides are great but they really just condense the readings by 50% or so. We came to the consensus that PAK gives Just curious, now that the SOA is hosting both in-person and virtual APCs, how is your company handling the expenses? Are they just paying for the registration of the event? Are they still covering travel and hotel? I attended in person in May, and my company paid for both registration and travel expenses. I started applying for actuarial internships in late August. The difference is just volume. The only person you need to convince is yourself, every I have close to 4 years of work experience, 2 of which may be regarded as UK relevant since I was working in the back office of the UK branch of a Big 4 consultancy (I wasn't located in the UK though). Pensions refers to DB pension schemes, which are mostly 'closed to accrual' now apart from public sector schemes. Going to college next year, would like some opinions on the benefits of becoming an actuary vs a quant, and vice versa. Some people may add or remove from this list, but thats my thought. Accounting with cpa pays similar but way more hours so take that into consideration. My company just wants people to attend Not on a similar pay basis, or even a similar field basis, but what other careers would you think are equivalent to being a fellow on an amount of work/aptitude basis? I think most engineering careers would be similar to being an actuary on this basis. There are more CPCU exams and each one is focused on a particular topic so you would expect to have to remember more detail about it on a CPCU exam vs that section of OC1/2. 200,000. If you are a future or prospective lawyer, a client, or staff, we kindly invite you to check out the other legal communities in our sidebar. I found that working at a larger company there was a lot of menial tasks to complete and it was harder to see the big picture. I took exam P during my last semester of college. Actuary: An Overview . As stated previously, due to the similarity of many EL actuarial and DS positions, transitioning between them isn’t hard. My study partner used TIA. Actuarial is for people who don't want to work as much, enjoy studying and passing exams, and still make good money for the hours worked. I currently work in analytics with aspirations to become a Data Scientist but recently I have been thinking about the actuarial career path and whether I should change my career to become an actuary. There is some truth to this though. life pricing vs pension consulting (Canada) I've been offered 2 different jobs but not sure of which to decide. This was mainly due to the idea that began to fester in my mind about patent law and its lack of fulfilment as a job. Engineering is also watching paint dry but a lot more stressful. These figures are non-life so maybe adjust by removing £5k or so for life, someone who works there may be able to help more. The specific questions you asked come up here pretty frequently. the short answer is no. Minnesota vs. Salary vs. A disciplined and focused actuary could get their FSA around the same time a doctor finished med school and have been working a full time job along the way, only needing to spend part of their weekly routine studying vs med school which sucks up your entire life. From actuary you can go into a variety of consulting specialties in which the exit opportunities are much There’s an efficient frontier of £ and suckage; actuarial work is on it. If so, the current state of the market seems to be, for non-life and basic salaries only: Grad: £35k. Actuaries can start exams in college (usually junior year), so can finish their FSA faster than a doctor finishing their Most of my relationships were with other actuaries and underwriters. If you like the finance side and see your route up to CFO or similar then reserving is probably better. $78k (consulting) 2019 $68K with 3 exams in life insurance. 9 actuarial exams). In the January 2021 DTP case they lost to an unrepresented actuary: their QC argued that the cost guidance of 2020 rather than the previous version ought to be applied, irrespective of that fact this actuary had resigned from the IFoA in 2019. Math - can be an actuary or a teacher. The work is boring and mind-numbing. Most data sci and SWE careers require an undergrad degree, with a handful of DS positions requiring a masters (these are usually research positions). As a general rule, a government environment is lower stress than consulting jobs (or even insurer jobs). In comparison accountants do have more opportunities, like significantly more. Maybe being a lawyer? Class of 2021. I chose to become actuary because I love logic and mathematics and that's the only thing I love about my job ( absence of which makes it boring at times), the other most important reason is I wanted a job which can pay decently and enable me to have a good lifestyle. Seen a lot of debate on here between these two careers and trying to say which one is better than the other etc. The salary is $7000 higher in Hartford for COL adjustments but the job is exactly the same. In the end I think I may need to talk to someone in the insurance field though. 77. While looking for jobs and talking to recruiters, I noticed that the salaries posted for non life roles are higher than equivalent life roles. If you make it to Fellow, the pay is great (not just above average like this sub would have you think). Clear and fast career progression based on exams completed. Reserving tends to be less math/theoretical and more ad hoc/practical. Hours in act science may be 40-50 hours a week at most. Underwriting is much more important and setting rates is a deeper conversation between underwriting and actuarial to blend the basic pricing data with more nuanced information gathered by underwriting. Either way I think they’re both good options, though, I’m (clearly) a little biased toward TIA. 100,000. Advice needed: Actuary vs Data Science. The Institutes writes all of their exams the same way. • 2 yr. A good external recruiter makes the process much easier, and they will usually have a good rapport with the interviewers. 9. force of interest). The IFoA claims (in this instance) it's because you need to be cleverer to become an actuary than you do to become an accountant or a lawyer. 94. I was then able to land an entry level job once I graduated with no internships and only 1 exam. Add a Comment. If it's a P&C job, you wouldn't be pursuing an ASA anymore, so the question makes less sense. CAS covers P&C. Money/WLB is one of the best imo. You could get one or two questions requiring integration (e. Similar to what r/accounting does, I thought it'd be interesting to see what sort of raise / bonus everyone received since it's One works for insurance companies, the other works for non-insurance financial companies. I have a math degree, my Financial and Managerial accounting professor suggested I consider actuarial science. Check out the sidebar for intro guides. YogurtclosetIll7870. This guy has worked in every actuarial position under the sun across his 20+ troll accounts. If you don’t have a job yet then it’s basically just your preference for which one you think is more interesting. As others said the job is different and much lower stress compared to most SWE, but I'd say one of the big draws of the actuarial profession to me is the lower variability in pay and the guaranteed increases from exams. Same if you need legal advice. Pricing is more stable workload. Dec 29, 2022 ยท Financial Analyst vs. IndifferentDisregard. Since you're asking I'm assuming you haven't taken any exams yet. I’m assuming you’re in the U. Companies don't want to pay someone with no experience what someone with 5 exams can get in the market. g. Many accountants will file tax returns, but don’t do much more than that. My family and I are sooo split on this and I just want some opinions from other actuaries. On average, higher potential salary. Subreddit for actuarial professionals, students and interested (innocent) bystanders. First, about 10 years ago the career was MUCH less saturated and exams were MUCH easier (pre-Blooms). In terms of difficulty difference there really isn’t any. The financial sector is full of careers for analytical individuals; perhaps no two jobs exemplify this more than the financial analyst and the actuary. You don't have to do tax or auditing, there are many other options. This was literally the last CSP ever given. Most choose based on where they get a job opportunity, which is sensible. There are formulas to apply, but there are also a LOT of judgment calls to make. And I worked in ERM. Act sci - can only become an actuary, and nothing else. If you're competent and have solid soft-skills No I do not think it is worth it. Manhattan is a little too expensive IMO for non-FSAs, especially if you're stuck with $70k+ of loans. Exams. Every once in a while we see a debate of Actuary vs SWE/DS, while it offers some good insights for certain people, I think it is also important to keep in mind, there’s no point of trying to create FOMO or convince anyone to validate your choice. 1. But yes auditing involves more travelling. When I started in-house I only did one of the three GI streams (I. Equal or better job security (insurance companies are stable as fuck, won't layoff in an economic downturn) Better hours, no "busy season" like accounting. I think your ceiling of 130-150 is pretty reasonable for most people. e. The Reddit Law School Admissions Forum. Hartford. Actuarial Studies at Macquarie University Pro: exemption from Part I (maybe some of Part II) for Actuary exam Cons: entry level jobs for A subreddit for the business and practice of law, catering to lawyers without the support network of a large firm, and **not** generally for legal analysis or substantive case discussion. Capital/Reserving/Pricing). Job / Resume. In short, actuaries work mainly, though not solely, for insurance companies. LordFaquaad. - All SOA official practice problems (except for TS and GLM) and some problems from the a/s/m study manual. And perhaps the legal background would be valued in that field as insurance companies have a lot of dealings with the law in general. The first thing to note about the FSA exams is that the sheer volume of material dwarfs anything in the preliminary ones. More time to be a doctor: 4 years med school + 4 years residency (could vary based on specialty) + 1 year fellowship (could vary based on specialty) And, doctors get paid much more straight out of fellowship/training. More recently you may get to work on helping The exam system does such a great job of limiting entry for actuarial; DS has nothing similar, and the discipline (such as it is) is doing a pretty good job of figuring out what people actually need to know, which means fewer job requirements as time goes on. So a bit about me: I studied Maths and Stats at uni and graduated a couple of years ago. - Learned concepts and formulas of time series models and generalized linear Actuary career debate. Studying BCom double major in Maths and Finance at University of Sydney Pro: wider career choice, as I'm also interested in analytics jobs or bank investment Cons: no exemption for Actuary exams. £70k as a minimum, you will be fine. IB is not going to be a magical job where you’re connected to the markets. And more and more schools have actuarial science degrees nowadays. I work as an actuary, a job that is consistently found on lists of top careers. I say go with a recruiter, having to send out resumes is a pain in the ass, btw British recruiters always seem to be way better than American…not sure why this is just my personal experience. View community ranking In the Top 5% of largest communities on Reddit UK university student looking for advice - Actuarial vs Accountancy As per the title I am a final year mathematics student on track to get a first and taking the CT1 module as an independent student. The top people in investment banking are obviously making more, but I don’t actually think it has much to do with their math skills generally. Compensation in this career is ridiculously low. You can also try searching the forums at the Actuarial Outpost. The work itself is going to depend on how far in your career you are, but near-entry level analysts can expect to be mostly updating spreadsheets. Anyone who advanced to FCAS and into management prior to that point basically had a much easier road because of much less competition (that does not mean they are poor actuaries). Not much exposure to senior people. Every time I just got a standard rejection Money is good, work life balance is good, and you’ve done a lot of the work to get going in that direction. No body fluids, poisonous gases or working at heights. So far I have interviewed over 13 companies and I went through 2-3 rounds of interviews with several companies. As a chief actuary lol. Animals and Pets Anime Art Cars and Motor Vehicles Crafts and DIY Culture, Race, and Ethnicity Ethics and Philosophy Fashion Food and Drink History Hobbies Law Learning and Education Military Movies Music Place Podcasts and Streamers Politics Programming Reading, Writing, and Literature Religion and Spirituality Science Tabletop Games As far as the day to day, reserving is more busy at quarter and year end. An investment banking analyst at a reputable firm is about 140K-160K all in, and most people jump to private equity or hedge fund after 2-3 years as an analyst for maybe 250K as an associate (hard to say because bonus really depends). Our customers do that. It wasn’t until I switched to a smaller company and worked on larger projects that I understood what I did at the From what I know; Actuary is WAY better than accounting, but is not for everybody. 2. The difference between 5 exams vs 2 exams is 3 exams. Post any questions you have, there are lots of redditors with admissions knowledge waiting to help. Switched a year later to healthcare into an entry level position (so lateral move) with a $78k base. October Exam PA Results. All 7 or 11 of them (CPAs have 4). Exam M used to be jointly offered between the SOA and CAS, similar to other prelims, and would cover the material of exams MLC and MFE. It took me 4 years to pass all of the exams (no fails) and now I am a FCAS. Sure its more traditional for a CPA to start her own firm, but she is still locked into doing CPA work (Accounting and Compliance). When people say "You're an accountant, you must be good at math", they are confusing accountants with actuaries. Animals and Pets Anime Art Cars and Motor Vehicles Crafts and DIY Culture, Race, and Ethnicity Ethics and Philosophy Fashion Food and Drink History Hobbies Law Learning and Education Military Movies Music Place Podcasts and Streamers Politics Programming Reading, Writing, and Literature Religion and Spirituality Science Tabletop Games If by growth you mean absolute monetary compensation, then an investment banker >> an actuary. •. If you check any salary survey, non-technical jobs like accounting have caught Everyone I know in accounting is way happier than those in law. There is always long term job security with actuaries as well. Grad school does cost a lot, but a 125k starting salary makes that more affordable. Accounting has good salaries with much better work life balance, aside from tax season. 44. Law: Level 9 stress 12 months each year. Most of the plans are frozen and the work is NOT interesting unless your company has a lot of Ad-Hoc projects helping a larger company do some number crunching or even the DC work is more interesting than the Define Benefit work. S. Hello everyone, I went through a phase for about 3-4 months where I was absolutely convinced by the concept of being a patent attorney. Much better than accounting imo. The purely actuarial consulting firms are willis towers watson (wtw), milliman, oliver wymann and mercer. Assuming a proper actuary though, both the “quant” and “actuary” job titles are being diluted a fair bit. Insulated from shifts toward single payer. As time progressed and I was completing the final year of my degree, I began to have doubts. Couldn’t agree more with this post. Attorney-to-attorney referrals, knowledge-sharing, business and marketing tips, and a lot more! Did an internship in both and actuary is the best vs accounting. As thatbubblegumtate said, you'll need at least a few exams passed before you get any job opportunities and each exam will take roughly 3 months to study for. For more info go to /r/Save3rdPartyApps/ ​ https://redd. Within the past 5-10 years the actuarial field has grown quite a bit due to being featured on many lists of top careers to have if you enjoy math/statistics/critical thinking. NQ: £75k-80k. View community ranking In the Top 5% of largest communities on Reddit Actuarial vs Data Science Internship Some context: I am a first year at university (sophomore by credits), I planned on passing one of the prelim exams each semester. Can't wait to eventually hear about your opinions on actuaries based on your experience as a firefighter-astronaut-accountant-doctor-lawyer-CEO. ago. Doing both rn- about halfway through Actuarial and CFA exams. In my opinion, they probably just suit different people, although there is obviously some overlap with both requiring decent maths and a quantitative focused degree. I was one level lower than actuarial analyst. In a nutshell I would describe a Pension Actuary, a lawyer that knows accounting. We are expected to study in our free time, have advanced math skills and have advanced computer/coding skills. Only advantage actuarial has is a “higher bottom”. Electrical engineer here with MS and MBA, now working at large aerospace company…go the actuary route. PQ (doing core): £35-60k. Work-life balance. Thanks anyways. Of course, that opportunity cost is lower if you're set on becoming an actuary and you couldn't realistically Yes, we get a certain number of study hours per exam (the number of hours depends on the length of the exam). The intelligence and technical skills required for this career are simply not accurately compensated for. I used PAK for all ILA exams. I work for a Fortune 500 company (life insurance) and do college intern and Actuarial also comes with seasonal exam pressure until you are qualified. Here are what I have done: - Read relevant ISLR material once + watching all ISLR YouTube videos. Financial Careers. Duh. Reply reply. Probably not a doctor, they have much more schooling and training. 5 exams will make it more difficult to find a job. On the plus side, the material is fairly similar. 36. The structure has changed since then. Pension consulting pays 10k more but life pricing is more interesting and offers exposure to US product pricing too. I'd like to move to US after achieving ASA (2 exams left). The big target for me going in was the DW Simpson salary survey which said if I had 5 YOE and my ASA I could expect a $120k A place for lawyers to talk about lawyer things with other lawyers. I work in life with 4 exam passes and 1 years experience on £33k, even with another year of good exam performance next year I'll max be on £36-37k. Accounting: level 10 stress for 2-3 months each year. Comp Sci - can be an actuary, or get an equally high paying job without the exams. The_Actuarial_Nexus. So they should like that idea as well. Graduates can expect to earn salaries of up to £40,000. 3. when I say that. Actuary has far better work life balance, it’s less competitive to get into, and if you climb the whole exam ladder you can definitely make close to what they make as investment bankers. If you want to be more commercially focussed and want more creative freedom then go pricing. If you become a credentialed actuary, your entire life you will probably have a higher income than 4/5 people your age. You need extreme dedication, motivation, and ability to self study to get through the exams. This sub will be private for at least a week from June 12th. Yeah my main guess would be as an actuary for an insurance firm, not so much as a lawyer for them. Longterm a bigger company will have more opportunities to move between roles than a small one might. I spent time researching about the company (types of products they offer, their company's culture, their mission statement, etc). Exams are required for all North American Actuaries (SOA and CAS) - Masters or no Masters . it/144f6xm/ ADMIN MOD. at smaller companies you can have a wider range of job responsibilities and understand the bigger picture more. Actuaries use addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and Excel does it all for you anyways. The more vanilla and/or regulated the product, the more the I used to be a pensions actuary and now work in Life. Otherwise, level 7 stress. I’ve encountered numerous accountants that won’t prepare section 85 election forms and will engage a tax specialist to do something like that. The dark truth. So the job is doing valuations of those annuity liabilities and other regulatory stuff and anything else that the trustees need. Work Invested: Actuarial vs. Just take a look at your area job postings. More importantly however, the behavior of reddit leadership in implementing these changes has been reprehensible. I don't think there's much overlap between the two. Pros: Better salary. You’ll be connected to excel and PowerPoint for 18 hours per day refreshing comps. Entry level competition for actuary is really brutal and the openings are far few and within. SOA covers life, pension, and health insurance tracks. 5-4 years of experience with your fellowship. Actuaries make more money for less hours, but you have to pass the exams. The big 4 firms, they have actuarial consulting. And then well into six figures for PQE. If you’ve already passed SOA exams, it shouldn’t be too much work to revise the material and pass the equivalent IFOA exams. The IFoA change the rules as they go along and also apply these rules retrospectively or not to suit themselves. Reply. When starting out consultancy is probably better imo than in-house because you work with a lot more varied people and more particularly you work on a lot of different things. Firm culture, amusing anecdotes, and the legal world. As a start you could research where the home offices of different insurance companies are located. I assume the government regulatory agency is in the same industry (health) but I'm not sure. Actuarial Work vs. Actuaries don't hold a candle to doctors, lawyers, engineers or even data scientists with PhDs. I chose the CAS for a few reasons: More exams. 2020/21 Compensation Thread. NQ pay and progression. Hope your interests don't ever change! 8. I know its kind of comparing apples and oranges, but how do you think the actuary exams compare to those? I'm curious what you all think! Unfortunately you can no longer get credit for individual exams, so if you want to do the IFOA exams you’ll need to start again. The exams are more challenging than in banking, and some find them highly stressful. If you love math enough to become a mathematician, DO NOT become an actuary. Regardless of if you passed or not, we all are active learners and trying to better ourselves for our career - this is something to be proud of. It is a business job with some math, not a math job with some business. Hi All, I just wanted to make a quick post about the October 2023 Exam PA results that come out tomorrow. 89. Looking at salary surveys for multiple career paths, it strongly seems that there are several financial careers that pay more than actuarial science, have larger potential to be very highly compensated, and seem easier to attain credentials wise (CFA and an MBA vs. Basically I got entry level job offers for the same company, same position in Hartford, Connecticut and in Minneapolis. Which is a different sort of pressure, and one you can't really avoid if you want to progress. For consulting, we have a billable hours goal we have to hit each year (billable hours are just the number of hours spend on work that can be billed to the client). Salary was 75k with 2 exams and 1 internship (carrier) Started in 2020, 3 exams 1 internship. That’s where the actuaries would likely work. In general, actuarial exams require greater effort and depth understanding wgereas CFA exams require more prep but if you are able to devote enough time to each topic you have a better chance of passing. Obviously, you need to pass exams to be an actuary. As for which one to take, most people are going to take ASTAM if they’re health insurance and ALTAM otherwise. The outlook is bleak. 150,000. Here’s what I see, actuaries have to study for 8 years (avg) after undergrad anyway, why not just become a quant. F8Tempter. If you can clear the exams in a reasonable amount of time I'd say it's definitely worth it and steer clear of pensions. I'd say anyone can get to six figures after qualification, especially in London. The FSA is a mile wide and a mile deep. You'll probably be at 3. Maybe technically one of them is too small/ not purely actuarial. A lot of people find FM to be an easier exam; you could start with that one if you like. Studying B. Accounting; Which Should I Do? (Long Post) I'm aware there's an inherent bias in asking the actuary subreddit whether or not I should take being an actuary over something else, but, at the moment, I'm a little bit more interested in actuarial work than I am that of other fields. Reserving of course busy during reserving periods. Accounting credentialing is quicker/easier than actuarial and a lot more opportunities to make the big money. but I am unaware of a situation where CERA was helpful. This is because DS is not restricted to any industry. I was lucky enough to get a P&C job offer and a health offer (SOA) so I did make a deliberate choice. Accounting is basically checking over peoples work and being an actuary is actually figuring out the work and manipulating data. Average salary for Chartered Accountant £84,500 so why train to become an actuary? "Starting salaries for accountants vary depending on the location, sector, size and type of firm. People would take the ERM exam as their first FSA exam since it counts as the SP for most tracks and you could still choose any track afterwards. You could also do a simple job search in your area to see what, if any, types of jobs for actuaries are available. Actuarial = less memes but they hit harder. However, the pay is typically lower, sometimes All together college took me around 8 years. Most of the cost associated with a master's degree isn't the direct financial cost, it's the opportunity cost associated with not making a salary for that year plus having one less year of experience for the remainder of your career. If you failed, you gained more knowledge for the next attempt. The bottom line is that actuaries are paid very well. You may get some VEE credit for your Masters program classes, but VEEs are a joke so that's not saying a whole lot. Generally, with the likes of the Big 4 (assumption again), the pay grades are set for newly qualified with slight variations between them. That is insulting to other professions, and in other instances the IFoA is at pains - more reasonably, but contradicting what it implies to students- to claim that actuaries should treat lawyers and Tax lawyers don’t prepare tax returns, so the filing side of planning is done by the accountant. IB is for people who want to work more or less constantly, 80+ hours a week, and make a shitload of money. SRM in one monthNeed help :) I'm sitting for SRM next May. On exam P you need integrals for continuous random variables, which a significant portion of the exam. My view on the actuarial vs swe/data science debate. You’ll probably need 2-3 exams passed before you can land an entry level job. If actuary is ranked #1 job, why isn't every college student planning on becoming an actuary? I know the actuarial job market is very small, so I'm concerned that if the profession is so highly praised, what if there is too much supply that it may be impossible to find a job as an actuary after passing exams. For exam FM, integrals are rare. Some people like the rotation programs at big companies - I have never worked at a place with a formal rotation program and it has been fine and hasn't hindered me (I have switched roles within a company before though, the process . The best place on Reddit for admissions advice. Typically though, an actuary will also be more business savvy as they tend to end up in the executive positions and advise on pricing etc. Statistics - can be an actuary, or get a master's or doctorate and make bank as a data scientist. hr gh gy fw di ss ra mw lw la