I had the worst experience at my last company. My manager at the time promised—twice—that she was working on my promotion. When the time came, she got promoted herself and didn’t even say a word. No update, no acknowledgment—just silence. After that, I completely checked out. I focused on my exams and did the bare minimum until I could get out.

Eventually, she rotated out and a new manager came in—someone she was close with. I often saw them chatting in Chinese at the office, which honestly made me feel excluded. It felt like the new manager was overly critical of everything I did, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d been talking behind my back. That was the final straw—I decided to leave.

A few weeks later, I had multiple job offers and went with the most prestigious company. And wow—what a difference. The culture is respectful, supportive, and people actually appreciate my work. It’s only been a few weeks, but I already feel happier, valued, and way more motivated. So glad I left that toxic environment.

To my fellow actuaries: if you’re feeling stuck or dealing with disrespectful managers, know that there are companies out there that will truly value you. I know times are tough, but keep your head up—you deserve better.

Just to confirm, for question 5, SOA made the mistakes.

It should be divided by 5%, which is truc active risk

Hi guys, I am an actuary working in UK with 12 years XP in reinsurance. I’ve worked in Capital, Reserving, Pricing, Finance, Strategy and finally Underwriting (treaties Non Life). I am quite happy with my experience so far as I’ve learned so much, but I am eager to learn more. I’ve looked at CII and Lloyds programs but I am not convinced. I would like to find a course or certificate in a niche speciality, like Cyber, Emerging Risks, ILS or other. Do you guys recommend any course or school worth spending money and time ? Are there any famous MBAs that an actuary could do to progress in his/her career ?

P.S: sorry if any mistakes, English isn’t my first language

Thanks

Hi,

I am taking GHDP this April which is my first ASA exam . I was writing answers and comparing them with SOA model solutions, but the answers in the solution are so much longer than mine. Even for a 1 point question (for which I had 3 lines), SOA had a whole paragraph. I was curious what the rule of thumb is on how long they answers are supposed to be, and if we are expected to cover literally everything SOA has on their solution, or just a portion of it, for full credit

Anyone else struggling to register for the PCPA project for the June 2025 window?

Website says registration is open but when I click "Register" it redirects to the CAS portal which does not in fact have the registration on it...

If the exams are so tough I am wondering how difficult to the day to day math complexity is compared to the exams. Are you SOA (health, life, or pension) or CAS? Does the daily math mentally exhaust you every day?

Hey all, is there an active discord for those studying for the ILA LFM-U sitting this May? If so, please send me the invite! Thanks

What is NEW in 3rd edition compared to 2nd edition?

The past couple weeks my boss keeps eating bananas at his desk then rubbing the banana skin over his face.

He also keeps declaring that “we gotta get at least ten thousand” every day

WTF is going on?

What’s been your best way to get rid of that latent uncertainty after a big mistake at work?

Should I be worried? I’ll be starting as a new hire at a large life insurance company and this whole tariff thing got me worried.

Taking dp for first time on 4/29. Usually about a month out from asa exams I would feel pretty shitty about It but always ended up being fine. Feel more prepared than I normally do this far out but even more nervous because I know these are a whole other beast.

Not even sure what I’m asking but mostly want to pulse how others sitting feel or how past sitters felt at this point to know if I’m over worried. Also really feel myself burning out with this work and life, so if I’m not screwed I may slow down my pace a little.

I’m re reviewing the material doing flash cards and practice problems, doing about two chapters a day, like 10 new flash cards each day and maybe 4 complete past exam problems (but I’d say I’m only able to do like 30% of them on my own, this is mostly just for exposure and excel practice). I’m about halfway through my rerun of the syllabus and feel like I can get probably 60% of those flash cards.

Without the ability to grind adapt It is really hard to gauge my progress which is making this worse

For this question, it says

Assume that the manager uses a leverage ratio of 2:1 in the purchase of the convertible bonds and borrows the additional investment capital from his prime broker at a prime rate of 4%.

(c) (1 point) Calculate the total return on capital for this arbitrage.

I have problem with the leverage ratio part, why the amount we borrow is 4,500 not 3,000 the amount we need is 9,000 in total.

Anyone has the same problems?

I am curious about this as the Milliman Chicago life office seems like a very interesting place to work in the future, mainly the M&A/reinsurance/transactions work, ALM/asset adequacy/valuation, equity hedging/modeling, etc. On some of the job postings seem to treat them as separate teams, while some don’t. Both the M&A deal work and hedging/more financial stuff piques my interest, so I’m wondering if both groups have the possibility to get exposure to both types of work. If they are different, is there a major culture/work/pay/compensation difference between the two?

Sometimes I feel easily lost in very technical conversations or often I don’t have answers on the spot for many things. Comparatively I feel like I do lack knowledge or the ability to follow compared to others. I have several years of experience and my fsa.

Has anyone attending the actuarial programs at Waterloo, U of T, UQAM, or other schools in Eastern Canada noticed a spike in enrollment over the last couple years?

I went to SFU myself, and the cohorts I saw were relatively small, typically under 20 students each year. However, after speaking with some current first- and second-year students, they mentioned that their cohorts have recently grown to around 40 students.

This, along with the record ASNA attendance numbers — 600 students in 2023, growing to over 900 in 2025 — makes me think that schools like Waterloo may be seeing an even bigger increase in enrollment. If that's the case, we may see the entry-level job market become increasingly oversaturated in the coming years.

Can anyone attending these schools right now confirm or refute my suspicion? Have enrollments in these programs increased significantly? I'd also be interested to hear opinions from anyone dealing with recruiting in these regions. Do you think the EL market is becoming increasingly oversaturated? And why do you think this is?

Hi, I am an actuary with almost 10 years experience. Need some career advice. Here's my career so far.

Year 1 to Year 3 (non-life insurer): pricing retail business (personal lines and motor) + some portfolio monitoring for commercial business such as workmen compensation and property.

Year 4 to Year 7 (composite insurer): switched company from a pure non-life to a composite insurer. But I still specialise in non-life, albeit now in reserving and regulatory reporting.

Year 7 to Year 10 (still the same composite insurer): Job scope changed to reinsurance management for entire non-life segment for the company + starting a commercial lines pricing function (which didn't exist before and was fully underwriter-driven) + Motor portfolio

3 promotions in 6 years with the composite insurer (so in hindsight a worthwhile career switch). Qualified + company pretty much handed the reins of almost the entire non-life segment to me. Retail pricing excluded only because I had little interest after doing it from Year 1 to Year 3.

From an individual contributor to a manager handling 3 (going to 4) headcount in this same composite insurer. My credibility to my senior management is sound (evident from the many times my name is quoted for non-life issues to investigate).

Now my issues are 1. The composite insurer is a big player in the local market but has literally no regional exposure.

1. The composite insurer is incredibly "petty". E.g. no budget for any seminars or training out of the local country, even if my reinsurers are willing to co-pay together for me.

2. The business is looking more and more "vanilla" to me. I appreciate and recognise the progress I had, but I am losing the passion, even more so with point #2 above.

3. Doesn't help when the non-life business owners in the company are (much) older and doesn't have the same drive to push for results. Or for some reason, are ok with having loss-making products.

4. Chief Actuary is Life-trained and cannot appreciate non-Life business and have unrealistic margins for non-Life. (Who plans for 25% profit for a new product?!)

Looking for career advice because I saw a regional/global pricing role and for some reason, it intrigued me greatly even though it was a sole contributor role with much lesser exposure to senior management. Am I just being "sour" and demanding too much from my current company? I would reckon many would want my current position?

Hey Actuary Community!!

Let’s say if you have the chance to spend an hour with a chief actuary, what are the meaningful questions/topics of discussion you most wanna ask and know about in this precious limited time? :)

Hi folks,

I'm a Mechanical Engineer (Chartered Engineer in the UK) and a Python simulation specialist.

Married to an actuary hence my interest in the field (along with my tangential role as a modeller in heavy industry engineering).

About 6 months ago I made an Udemy course on Python aimed at engineers and scientists. Since then over 7000 people have enrolled in the course and the reviews have averaged 4.5/5, which I'm really pleased with.

I know there are a few actuaries out there interested in learning the foundations of Python - especially in the new age of GenAI where it's really helpful to have a basic grasp so you can review and verify generated code.

The course is quick - split into 10 bite sized chunks. Only takes a few hours.

If you would like to take the course, I've just generated 1000 free vouchers: https://www.udemy.com/course/python-for-engineers-scientists-and-analysts/?couponCode=APRIL2025FREEBIE

If you find it useful, I'd be grateful if you could leave me a review on Udemy! Also if you are interested in simulation then I have a little bit of information about my simulation offerings at the end of the Python course.

And if you have any really scathing feedback I'd be grateful for a DM so I can try to fix it quickly and quietly!

Cheers,

Harry

Hi

If anyone has exam FAM Asm manual 2nd edition, I would like to buy one. DM if you are in toronto.

Just wanted to see what people's experience (professional growth, work culture, work life balance/flexibility etc.) is working at one of the 4 large insurers that hires Life Actuaries (Sun Life, Manulife, Canada Life, IA Financial)? Is there one company that offers a better working experience over others?