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

#251

Post by 1123581321 » Wed, Dec 29, 2021, 6:43 AM UTC

omosubi wrote: post #2

I feel very difficult exams should be commonplace. Everyone should be held to very high standards. It's surprising how many professions don't do this. For example, I've been to several physical therapists who barely seemed to understand what was wrong with me even after several visits. Each gave me what seemed like the same standard routine that they give everyone with problem.

Exams for positions whose work can apply to the entire organization can be more difficult without significant negative effects. Positions that interface with people (don't scale) suffer more when testing and licensing is too onerous.

For example, physical therapy services would suffer if testing were too onerous for patient-interfacing therapists, but the physicians and researchers who set the direction of the PT program can be examined more thoroughly and this is essentially how medical practice is structured.

Similarly, actuaries, whose modeling and underwriting work applies across the entire financial org, can be tested more rigorously than the financial advisors and customer service reps who are busy with customers, custodians, etc.

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

#252

Post by SilasX » Wed, Dec 29, 2021, 6:48 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #205

SilasX wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought I addressed exactly that in my original reply It’s not really working if and when once side is incentivized not to pay when they can and are obviously at fault. Your comment is like saying “yeah that corporation used a natural pond as a toxic waste dump, so what? Corporations are supposed to make a profit, right?” Yes, they are … subject to other social desiderata like respecting others’ rights. You seem to…

>It’s not really working if and when once side is incentivized not to pay when they can and are obviously at fault. This seems to be based on the "making all parties whole" interpretation of insurance, rather than "protect the policyholder". Are you ignoring my prior comment entirely? Are you trying to argue that insurance companies ought to have a "making all parties whole" imperative rather than a "protect the poli…

> This seems to be based on the "making all parties whole" interpretation of insurance, rather than "protect the policyholder". Are you ignoring my prior comment entirely?

No, you’re ignoring the three comments I’ve made now that clearly indicated I was talking about “the structuring of the insurance system” (rather than the OP’s liability policy), and continuing to argue against something you should be aware I’m not endorsing.

And yes, making victims whole is the purpose of mandating liability coverage for drivers.

Can I ask what you think your comment is adding to the discussion that it didn’t have before?

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

#253

Post by grouphugs » Wed, Dec 29, 2021, 6:50 AM UTC

No post body was provided.

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

#254

Post by SilasX » Wed, Dec 29, 2021, 6:54 AM UTC

lazide wrote: post #244

SilasX wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The claim I was defending was that the way auto liability insurance is done is a scam, not that the concept of requiring liability insurance is a scam. Looking back, the original post's comment on that point was a final aside that was ambiguous. But my defense is of the charitable interpretation of that remark. Any auto liability insurance system should be written to avoid that kind of gaming.

It seems more like the poster was complaining that actually following through was hard and a pain in the ass, therefore the game is rigged. Really it’s just they’re used to someone else doing all the hard work and don’t want to shell out or expend effort for when something doesn’t go smoothly. Having dealt with contractors and others who decided doing what they were supposed too was clearly too hard (and then making…

I don't know what you think you're adding to the conversation here. The point of the auto insurance system as mandated by governments, including the "required liability" part, is to rise a bit above (or a "smidge above" as you might say) this folksy "it is what it is" nihilism.

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

#255

Post by s1artibartfast » Wed, Dec 29, 2021, 7:07 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #88

SilasX wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is a problem with the insurance, as it would be for anyone else. Shitty tactics are not exclusive to insurance, but that doesn't negate their actions, or the expectation that they should perform better.

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

#256

Post by newyankee » Wed, Dec 29, 2021, 7:10 AM UTC

civilized wrote: post #173

xeRTRex wrote: post #118

One of the most frustrating aspects of the process is that once outside of insurance/insurance-adjacent industries, the credentials are useless. I have my FSA (fellowship of the SOA) and CERA (chartered enterprise risk analyst) from the SOA. I no longer wanted to work in insurance and left for data science. I felt the need to obtain a graduate degree to feel qualified enough for the data science space. My Master's de…

The exams have two ultimate objectives: 1. Perpetuate the actuarial guild 2. Shovel money from aspiring actuaries and insurance companies into the SOA's coffers They aren't really, and aren't really meant to be, a marker of general, transferable intellectual skills or achievement outside the insurance industry. So it's not surprising that no one other than the parties involved (the SOA, aspiring actuaries, and insura…

In India, I feel the same about Chartered accountants and Lawyers. Not trying to dismiss their knowledge and expertise, but it is crazy the amount of stuff you can do yourself in this day and age but still need their signature. Low key I feel the same about some of the lower skilled Doctors too, although it is a very different ball game risk wise.

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

#257

Post by robocat » Wed, Dec 29, 2021, 7:19 AM UTC

poulsbohemian wrote: post #227

ak217 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state of that industry is absolutely incredible to me. Throughout the whole home purchase process all I can see is people trying to cover their ass and do the absolute minimum amount of work possible. I understand that they want to avoid getting sued, but the whole process (sell side agency, brokerage, buy side agency, title, home insurance, financing, escrow, whatever) is just agonizing every step of the way. I…

It's actually a much "safer" process for buyers and sellers today...there actually used to be greater integration in the past, but a lot of that went away in order to protect consumers. Regarding fees - when you actually break down the cost of a home sale, the fees really aren't much. On the sell side in particular, that commission should be irrelevant if the listing agent was doing their job, IE: marketing your prop…

> On the sell side in particular, that commission should be irrelevant if the listing agent was doing their job, IE: marketing your property in a way to get you a top dollar return.

A vendor agent’s financial incentive is to sell as quickly as possible, and spend as little time as possible on the sale. Successful vendor agents are very good at convincing vendors that they should sell, quickly. They have a variety of strategies, and vendors are easily convinced they got good value, since successful agents are good at marketing a narrative (and the vendor wants to believe they got a good deal).

Let’s say a successful agent sells 50 houses as quickly as possible. Another more honest agent works to get the best price, which takes them twice the time, so the honest agent only sell 25 houses. The commissions from selling 25 houses nets the honest agent approximately half the profit compared to the successful agent selling 50 houses at lower prices.

Financial incentives really do influence most agents, even if they are not so aware of how they have been influenced by other agents to sell quickly.

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

#258

Post by seibelj » Wed, Dec 29, 2021, 7:20 AM UTC

civilized wrote: post #173

xeRTRex wrote: post #118

One of the most frustrating aspects of the process is that once outside of insurance/insurance-adjacent industries, the credentials are useless. I have my FSA (fellowship of the SOA) and CERA (chartered enterprise risk analyst) from the SOA. I no longer wanted to work in insurance and left for data science. I felt the need to obtain a graduate degree to feel qualified enough for the data science space. My Master's de…

The exams have two ultimate objectives: 1. Perpetuate the actuarial guild 2. Shovel money from aspiring actuaries and insurance companies into the SOA's coffers They aren't really, and aren't really meant to be, a marker of general, transferable intellectual skills or achievement outside the insurance industry. So it's not surprising that no one other than the parties involved (the SOA, aspiring actuaries, and insura…

This is the same model of all licenses, which is inherited from the guild system common throughout all of human history (the government (monarchs, oligarchies, democracies) protect favored industries from competition).

I put them on a spectrum:

- Licenses that anyone can obtain by showing the requisite skills. This is the least nefarious, and the clearest example would be driver's licenses. In a perfect world anyone can apply for and receive a driver's license. It gets corrupted by requiring training from other state-approved schools, but in its purest form it achieves, "If you can pass the driver's test, you get a license." Interestingly enough even advanced degrees sometimes achieve this goal - in California anyone can take the bar exam and get licensed to practice law without ever attending an accredited law school. Every other state requires you to attend law school (and the required cost / debt) before getting licensed.

- Licenses that you can obtain only after attending approved schools. This would be doctors, dentists, accountants, and nearly every lawyer (see above). The filter for the guild is getting into the approved school. If you manage to get accepted into and complete the program, you will succeed in getting licensed based on raw intelligence (meritocracy). The primary filter that protects the guild is getting into the approved schools (although there exists a subset of people who make it into school and fail the license exam, most commonly in law).

- Licenses that anyone can get, but require some absurd amount of hours of training, which usually costs absurd amounts of money that achieves nothing and are government mandated because of various entities that lobby politicians. These would be all of the blue-collar guilds like hair stylists, interior decorators, and being a florist in Louisiana (seriously - https://www.kplctv.com/story/37848470/requirements-for-louis...). You can learn the basics of hygiene and sweeping hair in a 60 minute youtube video, but the 1000 hour requirement in a for-profit cosmetology school in Massachusetts (https://www.mass.gov/service-details/how-can-i-become-a-cosm...) is absolutely absurd, especially considering becoming an EMT - someone that literally saves lives and gets dying people to hospitals - is a $950 six-month part time program (https://www.boston.gov/departments/emergency-medical-service...). Even worse, very rarely these licenses are transferrable between states, making the blue collar employee both indebted and chained to a particular area.

- Licenses that anyone can get, but are purely graded on a curve in order to protect existing members. Finally we get to the actuarial licenses! Similar licenses would be Michelin star restaurants and wine sommeliers. Only a very small community appreciates these licenses, but the value to those that have them is high via the artificial scarcity. In order to keep them fair they offer the test(s) to anyone, but grade on an absurdly difficult curve to make them essentially random, and then take only the top scorers to preserve their scarcity. The process to get the license is to cram test exams ad infinitum and continue to take the test until you randomly get the top score. They ultimately mean nothing, at least compared to the amount of people who deserve the license vs. those that have them.

In summation, licenses are an atrocious relic of a bygone era, but because of economic incentives they live on in a variety of forms and have little chance of ever being eliminated.

Addendum - occasionally I will see an HN poster asking why there isn't some sort of certification or license for software engineers (perhaps in some countries these exist, but not in the USA where software engineers are the top-tier of salaries across all industries). My argument against this is that the lack of licenses is exactly why US tech companies dominate the world - anyone can succeed whether they are an ethnic or sexual minority, autistic / neuroatypical, paraplegic, etc. can learn to code and make an impact - and at any age! Licenses mean nothing to technology, and the moment they appear is a signal that something significant has changed and the industry in that country will collapse when compared to all the other countries that don't artificially restrict talent.

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

#259

Post by lelanthran » Wed, Dec 29, 2021, 7:29 AM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #155

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…

> You choose to drive with only liabilty insurance, and are upset that insurance didn't cover an accident when you had no liability. Seems clear to me he's upset the other driver's liability insurance isn't covering the accident in a case where law enforcement and others see clear liability for that other driver, and other driver's insurer's reasons seem to more or less amount to "you haven't legally compelled me to…

> Seems clear to me he's upset the other driver's liability insurance isn't covering the accident in a case where law enforcement and others see clear liability for that other driver,

So? Law enforcement officer's testimony isn't a court judgement. You can't seriously expect anyone to pay you if all you have is some testimony[1] that they owe you money.

Testimony is worthless until it is admitted into evidence in court. Keep that in mind and you expectations will be in line with the harsh realities, and then you won't be confused and disappointed about the outcomes.

[1] Testimony, even from a LEO, isn't a fact. During a matter in court, testimony that concludes that one party is at fault may be disputed by testimony that concludes that the other party (or no one at all) was at fault. In auto accidents it is not unusual for a court to decide that the liability is shared between the parties (50/50, 70/30, etc) - "Sure, the other guy swerved into you, and he really should have checked his blind-spot before performing the lane-change, but should you have really been overtaking in the slow lane? He should have checked his blind-spot, but you should have not accelerated into his blind spot in the first place."

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

#260

Post by lelanthran » Wed, Dec 29, 2021, 7:32 AM UTC

explodingman wrote: post #134

dragonwriter wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The judge should hit the other party. What judge? The whole scenario is around a party who was not willing to go to court. There's no judge involved.

The appropriate course is to sue the other driver directly and ignore the insurance company. A person cannot ignore a court summons, not even in Texas. The judge will know that the other driver's insurance will ultimately pay, so he can punish the insurance company for its intransigence by putting a heavy financial penalty onto the other driver.

> The appropriate course is to sue the other driver directly and ignore the insurance company. A person cannot ignore a court summons, not even in Texas.

As I read it, the teller of this story was unwilling to go to court, not even small-claims. If the justice system is not brought into the picture you can't seriously expect anyone to take claims of "you owe me money" seriously.