Actuary 101

Actuaries help businesses and governments assess the financial consequences of certain risks and help to minimize the cost of those risks. Often, the best way to mitigate risk is by using insurance.

What Do Actuaries Do?

Actuaries assemble and analyze data for insurance companies to estimate the probability and likely cost of an event such as death, sickness, injury, disability, or loss of property. They help insurance companies price their products and maintain adequate reserves to meet their financial obligations to policyholders.

Actuaries also help companies and governments design pension plans and maintain them on a sound financial basis. They calculate the level of pension contributions necessary to produce certain retirement income levels and advise on how best to maximize investment returns and minimize risk.

Types of actuarial practice

Actuaries tend to specialize in particular practice areas. These include:

Life insurance
Health insurance
Property and casualty insurance
Pensions and other retirement benefits

Some actuarial work spans several practice areas. A few examples:

Financial reporting
Enterprise risk management
Consulting (health, pensions, employee benefits, casualty and liability
Medicare and Social Security

Becoming an Actuary

In the United States, actuaries generally enter the profession by passing a series of exams offered by the Casualty Actuarial Society or the Society of Actuaries.

For details about actuarial credentials, refer to the "Actuarial Organizations" section of this site. For more information about actuarial work and preparing for an actuarial career, visit the “Be an Actuary” website.