Choosing a career is an important step in your life. You must know and understand
yourself and your interests, abilities and ambitions in order to
select the type of work which will provide you with challenging
and rewarding career opportunities.
If you are skilled in mathematics and are looking for a career where
you can make a worthwhile contribution to society, consider making
your career as an actuary:
Actuary
The Actuary is a specialist who combines an understanding of risks
and mathematical techniques to develop financial products to manage
these risks (eg. Insurance policies), price these products (eg.
Calculate insurance premium rates) and compute reserves to be held
for liabilities of companies undertaking these financial risks.
Actuarial Assistant
The Actuarial Assitant plays a valuable support role to the Actuary,
assisting with the calculation of premium rates and policy liabilities,
and developing new products.
What to actuaries do?
Actuaries are professional people who play a crucial role in the
success of large financial organisations - especially insurance
companies. They use mathematical skills to define, analyse and solve
financial and social problems.
The actuary helps to design insurance plans and then evaluates the
financial risk the company takes which it sells an insurance policy.
Your responsibilities as an actuary include making sure that your
company properly defines and carefully evaluates the insurance risk;
charges a fair price to assume the risk; and has an efficient system
to pay claims and expenses as they occur.
Actuaries must understand the entire operation of the insurance
field because their evaluations often influence organisation policies
and practices. In fact, actuaries' calculations and judgement can
commit organisations financially for many future years. Because
of this long-range financial commitment, actuaries are frequently
involved in many phases of an organsiation's business, such as general
management, marketing, research, underwriting, investments, accounting,
administration and long-range planning.
Where actuaries work
Most actuaries work in insurance - mainly life assurance. They are
often found in high responsible management positions making decisions
vital to the company's success. Insurance is a highly competitive
business and actuaries are constantly making commercial decisions,
which nevertheless must have a sound theoretical basis. The actuary's
day-to-day tasks involve fixing premium rates and surrender values
for policies and designing new types of policies. Actuaries have
to make crucial calculations such as what funds will be needed to
cover the company's long term liabilities and advise on how profits
should be distribution to policyholders and shareholders. The actuary
appointed under insurance company legislation has the statutory
responsibility of certifying that the company is solvent. Some actuaries
are responsible for the investment of the millions of dollars received
each year for premiums on life assurance policies.
What actuaries earn
Actuarial salaries compare favourably with other professions which
require similar skills and training.
What you need to become an actuary
The actuarial profession requires a good mathematical aptitude,
but actuarial work involves a practical type of mathematical ability
mixed with business skills. As an actuary you will be dealing with
real life problems rather than theoretical ones, therefore it is
important that you be curious, have sound judgement and be able
to think logically and creatively.
At school, you should have enjoyed mathematics and received above
average grades. Make sure you have plenty of practice in algebra
and its applications and enrol yourself in advanced courses, like
calculus or computer programming.
Although university or college training is not required for become
an actuary, it is almost essential to pass the actuaries examinations.
The best all-round preparation for an actuarial career is a mathematics
or statistics major, a business administration major with a mathematics
or statistics minor, or an economics major with a mathematics or
statistics minor. Your mathematics courses should include calculus,
probability and statistics. Some colleges and universities have
specific undergraduate or graduate programs in actuarial science.
Since you are training for a career in business, you need to develop
a broad understanding of the business environment. Important business
courses to include in your college curriculum are accounting, finance,
economics and computer science. The last course is especially important,
because the computer has become one of the actuary's main tools.
Understanding others ane effectively communicating ideas are essential
ingredients for success in this profession, so make sure that you
qalso incorporate such courses as English, business writing and
speech in your college studies. Some courses to round up your education
are philosophy, social science and history.
How to become an actuary
If you think an actuarial career can offer the challenges and rewards
you are looking for, you may like to contact the Society of Actuaries
(USA), Institute of Actuaries (UK) or Faculty of Actuaries (Scotland)
for more information. These institutions confer actuarial qualifications
which are recognised in Singapore.
If you wish to get more information about actuaries in Singapore,
please contact :
Singapore Actuarial Society
c/o Monetary Authority of Singapore
Insurance Commissioner's Department
10 Shenton Way, MAS Building Singapore 0207
| 
