Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test • Hacker News Board

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#81

Post by fn-mote » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 11:15 PM UTC

romwell wrote: post #59

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While corruption may have been the source of this particular business, the fact that insurance is required by law is a good thing. The counterfactual involves a bunch of uninsured judgement proof drivers clogging the road and ruining everyone else's day/life. The problem is already bad enough now when it is illegal to do.

Hot take: if it's something that's universally a good thing that should be required of every driver, it should be provided by the state and paid for with taxes / annual registration fees. Otherwise, it's just an income-generating scheme for private parties. Oh, and fun fact: the liability insurance isn't required to pay up anything unless the covered driver loses in court . They don't have to follow that the police r…

> it should be provided by the state and paid for with taxes / annual registration fees

The free market is required to accurately price the risk for each driver.

A 45 year old female driver with no infractions is much less risk than an 18 year old male with a DUI, so the former should pay less in premiums. The current system is doing that.

I do not see how a state-provided solution would come up with "accurate" pricing for individuals. Some market is needed.

I could see how some people (especially in high risk groups) would prefer not to pay according to their risk, but I do not agree that is better for society.

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#82

Post by madengr » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 11:20 PM UTC

stefan_ wrote: post #75

d136o wrote: post #39

In this [1] interview by Barry Ritholtz, Markel CEO essentially told the origin story of an insurance giant. Basically a family member was a lawmaker, passed a law that drivers of the newly invented cars (maybe horse buggies?) must be insured. They simultaneously started a company that sold insurance. Over time they learned to make money from investing their customers capital. It blew my mind at how candid he was abo…

The joke there is that every driver in the US still needs to carry uninsured driver insurance because so many don't have any and there are no checks. And of course the coverage minimums are utterly laughable; put a kid in a wheelchair and you are looking at many many millions of damage, $100k isn't gonna cut it.

No post body was provided.

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#83

Post by peregren » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 11:21 PM UTC

extr wrote: post #71

romwell wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Side story about how satisfied people can be with the mandated insurance. I was on coast-to-coast road trip when I got into an accident in TX. Someone was trying to pass me on the left in a turning lane, veered into the incoming lane, and then hit my vehicle's front wheels from the back. The police ticketed the other driver, and told me that insurance will surely take care of that on my side. "Wow, it's worse than we…

It sounds like you were just cheap, didn't want to purchase comprehensive coverage, then that came back to bite you. This sucks, but is hardly a scam. Even worse, it sounds like you even understood what comprehensive coverage does (cover 1st party physical damage regardless of situation), and consciously chose not to buy it, assuming that anything that would possibly happen to the vehicle would be someone else's faul…

If the other party is 100% at fault, why should they not pay for the damage they caused?

And its not “cheap” to not get comprehensive insurance. Its a calculated risk.

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#84

Post by Traubenfuchs » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

romwell wrote: post #57

d136o wrote: post #39

In this [1] interview by Barry Ritholtz, Markel CEO essentially told the origin story of an insurance giant. Basically a family member was a lawmaker, passed a law that drivers of the newly invented cars (maybe horse buggies?) must be insured. They simultaneously started a company that sold insurance. Over time they learned to make money from investing their customers capital. It blew my mind at how candid he was abo…

Side story about how satisfied people can be with the mandated insurance. I was on coast-to-coast road trip when I got into an accident in TX. Someone was trying to pass me on the left in a turning lane, veered into the incoming lane, and then hit my vehicle's front wheels from the back. The police ticketed the other driver, and told me that insurance will surely take care of that on my side. "Wow, it's worse than we…

Am I missing something here?

Shouldn‘t the other driver pay you personally?

And then he‘d have to hash out whether his insurance pays him that money?

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#85

Post by grp000 » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

not-my-account wrote: post #16

Is the answer to the question at the top 0.33? let pc = purchased_collision, pd = purchased_disability we have: 2 * P(pc) = P(pd) P(pc & pd) = 0.15 so P(pc) * P(pd) = 0.15 2 P(pc)^2 = 0.15 --> P(pc) = 0.274, P(pd) = 0.548 So the probability of neither pc nor pd is !P(pc | pd) = 1 - P(pc) - P(pd) + P(pc & pd) = 0.328 ~= 0.33? The addition of P(pc & pd) was to take account of the double counting of pc and pd. Please le…

Did you reverse the likelihoods? P(pc) = 2 * P(pd), probability of purchasing C is twice as likely to probability of purchasing D.

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#86

Post by Aloha » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 11:25 PM UTC

tfehring wrote: post #66

d136o wrote: post #39

In this [1] interview by Barry Ritholtz, Markel CEO essentially told the origin story of an insurance giant. Basically a family member was a lawmaker, passed a law that drivers of the newly invented cars (maybe horse buggies?) must be insured. They simultaneously started a company that sold insurance. Over time they learned to make money from investing their customers capital. It blew my mind at how candid he was abo…

Disclosure: used to be an actuary at an insurance company. I think the general rule is that your insurance will reliably cover the things that it explicitly says it covers, but that category may be narrower than you think, so you should read the policy and figure out what your policy does and does not cover. For example, if you go to a doctor who's not in your health insurer's network, you're probably not covered. In…

I'd love to know more about Texas County Mutuals! I find this stuff fascinating!

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#87

Post by gruez » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 11:28 PM UTC

AQuantized wrote: post #79

gizmo686 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats the scam? The insurance company was hired to provide insurance for the other driver. By all accounts they did so. If the other driver had no insurance, your options would have been the same: hope they pay out of good will, or sue them. The public policy motivation for liability insurance is to protect the lawsuit route. If you sue an uninsured driver and win, you might not be able to collect (getting blood from…

The 'scam' seems to be insofar as wealthy and powerful entities can exploit the functional inability of those less wealthy and powerful to meet them on even terms in the legal system. I think we could all agree that in an ideal world if someone is at fault, their insurance should pay out to those they damaged. The reality is that may only happen if you have an entity of similar magnitude to go to bat for you. That do…

>I think we could all agree that in an ideal world if someone is at fault

But that's the thing. The other driver was only declared "at fault" by the police report, which might hold some weight, but isn't the final say.

>but police reports should probably carry some weight without requiring a suit.

what would that entail?

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#88

Post by gruez » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 11:30 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #80

gizmo686 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats the scam? The insurance company was hired to provide insurance for the other driver. By all accounts they did so. If the other driver had no insurance, your options would have been the same: hope they pay out of good will, or sue them. The public policy motivation for liability insurance is to protect the lawsuit route. If you sue an uninsured driver and win, you might not be able to collect (getting blood from…

No, he’s (reasonably) upset that the other side’s insurance did not pay out when it was clearly their client’s fault, banking on his difficulty of filing a lawsuit. What do you call someone who victimizes people he know have a disadvantage in suing him?

That doesn't really seem to be an issue with insurance per se. In a world without insurance, you could still have people refusing to pay even if it's "clearly" their fault.

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#89

Post by gompertz » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 11:31 PM UTC

Actuarial major here (early 2000s). These exams are indeed quite hard - and if not hard (by someone's personal definition), just cover such a grotesque amount of material for a single exam that by the time you get to the last 20% of the syllabus, the first 80% feels like another lifetime ago.

I have passed three of the SOA (society of actuary) exams, and wrote a fourth and bombed it in ~2005 and never wrote again - returned for a compsci degree instead. Each exam took 300-400 hours of study time. I have nothing but the utmost respect for anyone who is a designated actuary.

Don’t let that sample question in the article fool you; most the exam questions all involve extensive use of integrals, differential equations, and other voodoo I’ve long forgotten to solve problems. Some questions can take upwards of solid page of equations to solve - some are outright dirty tricks with every possible exam answer carefully chosen to be the result of making a mis-calculation somewhere. Even relatively simple discrete mathematical questions can really throw you off in the heat of an exam. Also some questions are put into the exams that aren’t even graded and are “test pilot” questions for future exams, which you can piss away a bunch of time on for no reason at all. Naturally, you're also using relatively basic TI calculators in the exam which help you little in battle.

Re: Want to be an actuary? Odds are, you’ll fail the test

#90

Post by d136o » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 11:32 PM UTC

gnopgnip wrote: post #73

d136o wrote: post #39

In this [1] interview by Barry Ritholtz, Markel CEO essentially told the origin story of an insurance giant. Basically a family member was a lawmaker, passed a law that drivers of the newly invented cars (maybe horse buggies?) must be insured. They simultaneously started a company that sold insurance. Over time they learned to make money from investing their customers capital. It blew my mind at how candid he was abo…

Do you want someone who is "self insuring" to crash into you?

No, but it’s an interesting scenario to think through because I don’t think the insurance status of the other party seems to figure into my planning.

Our cars are fully paid for, and I’m operating under the assumption that it’s possible and for them to lose their whole value and I’d have to get a new car.

Covering remaining damage to myself seems to turn into a health insurance event (I.e. how to cover medical costs) akin to suffering from cancer or another high cost illness.

For both of those it’s expected that I’ll have to tap the piggy bank…

Beyond that, the most dangerous scenario to guard against (if I don’t die) would be something that impairs my ability to continue to be employed, so I do pay for AD&E insurance… I’d hope they would come through, but I’m sure they find their ways to avoid payouts.

Perhaps this matters if I felt like they’d harmed me enough to warrant trying to take them to court. In those cases though, it seems like I’d be handling higher order issues like actually trying to stay alive or recovering enough to get back to work.