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

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

#341

Post by Traubenfuchs »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #138
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What everyone is missing: you file a claim with your insurance company, and then they chase down the other party. If rando-joe you go to the other insurance company...yeah, of course they'll tell you "we investigated our client and found we don't have to pay you" because they're very much hoping you'll say "well shoot then" and go away. The other option is to have an attorney do it. With multiple witnesses and video…

Oh yeah I apparently missed the suing / negotiation effort.

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

#342

Post by m00n »

riskneutral wrote: post #12
stbtrax wrote: post #3

From experience from a few close friends: Actuarial science is always in the lists of top jobs but it's a terrible career. It's quite limiting and doesn't pay particularly well. The companies are all old and stagnant and the amount of time put in to studying for exams is taxing. It'd be much better ROI to put that time into studying for sw-eng roles. That is, unless you're particularly interested in memorizing math f…

> unless you're particularly interested in memorizing math formulas for insurance calculations Note that the formulas in question are the opposite of interesting formulas. They're just made-up regulatory rules about how much capital an insurance company has to hold in order to sell insurance. Everyone agrees that some amount of capital needs to be held. Everyone, except maybe some of the "actuarial scientists" themse…

Some things that actuaries also do besides "memorizing formulas":

* Asset-Liability management, i.e. hedging of future claims on the financial markets [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_and_liability_management]

* Consulting multinationals and nations, how to structure their $bn pension schemes for future generations

* Valuation of embedded options and guarantees by stochastic modelling of the company [https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/embeddedvalue.asp]

You can get a more balanced impression of topics, e.g. from the UK actuary society [https://www.actuaries.org.uk/studying/curriculum]

They also have past exams in full length incl. solutions.

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

#343

Post by thaumasiotes »

ikr678 wrote: post #338
thaumasiotes wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not clear that drugs (particularly for non animals not destined for human consumption) should be as expensive as human drugs. Are they different drugs?

Sometimes yes, but it's the testing and regulatory approval costs that should in theory be lower for animals.

So what? Those costs happen before you sell the drug. That would make a difference for a drug that isn't approved in humans and therefore didn't pay the approval cost at all. It makes no difference for a drug that is approved in humans.

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

#344

Post by namdnay »

nradov wrote: post #323
namdnay wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

A Michelin star rating is not a license. It has no legal force. It's simply a restaurant review, like you can read in any newspaper. Some consumers choose to trust Michelin reviews more than other sources.

Indeed, just like an olympic medal. The MOF is a better example IMHO

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

#346

Post by Aloha »

tfehring wrote: post #129
Aloha wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's a legacy category of company that gets favorable regulatory treatment (mostly in the form of more flexible pricing) for auto insurance policies written in the state of Texas. It's been illegal to form a new Texas county mutual since 1955, but the ~20 that have remained in existence since that time are still grandfathered in. Some of them have been acquired by big national insurers (e.g., GEICO fully owns one and…

You made me start to shop around for auto insurance and realize I'm overpaying.

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

#347

Post by mleonhard »

civilized wrote: post #327
mleonhard wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please share a link. And in the future, try to share links or at least names of things you tell people about. If you can't find the link or name, then say so. I think saying only "the thing you want exists" is a little rude.

No thanks, not after that display of attitude. Scolding people for not giving you more than they already gave you for free is a behavior that will never get you what you want. Update: eh, I'm in a good mood today so I'll tell you the name, it's Ladder. No link though. You may Google it as penance for being annoying.

To save others the search: https://www.ladderlife.com/

Are you sure that Ladder offers decreasing benefit insurance? I looked all over their website and found nothing about decreasing benefits. The name "Ladder" might imply the technique, called "laddering", of buying multiple policies to achieve decreasing coverage.

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

#348

Post by lcorwin »

mleonhard wrote: post #347
civilized wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thanks, not after that display of attitude. Scolding people for not giving you more than they already gave you for free is a behavior that will never get you what you want. Update: eh, I'm in a good mood today so I'll tell you the name, it's Ladder. No link though. You may Google it as penance for being annoying.

To save others the search: https://www.ladderlife.com/ Are you sure that Ladder offers decreasing benefit insurance? I looked all over their website and found nothing about decreasing benefits. The name "Ladder" might imply the technique, called "laddering", of buying multiple policies to achieve decreasing coverage.

In the spirit of saving the search - yes, it does offer the ability to decrease coverage as needed, with premiums decreasing by the same percentage as well (i.e. if you decrease benefit by half, premiums decrease by half, too).

Here's a link if it's helpful! https://www.ladderlife.com/laddering

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

#349

Post by aspenmayer »

duckmysick wrote: post #270
aspenmayer wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single payer system? Or a hybrid system with Medicare for all with income limits, above which you must either get third party insurance or pay a small tax is how it was done in Australia last time I was there. It seemed to work well when I was there, and I did have need of it. I had to go to the ER when I was peeing blood after being kicked by a horse directly in the kidney. Fortunately there were no blood clots an…

Right. Which is still called insurance. Medicare in Australia: https://www.health.gov.au/health-topics/medicare > Medicare is Australia’s universal health insurance scheme. It guarantees all Australians (and some overseas visitors) access to a wide range of health and hospital services at low or no cost. Medicare in Canada: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/canada-healt... > Medicare is a term that refe…

I actually tried to keep working. I felt horrible pain, but my sympathy for the horse masked a fair bit of it til I got home an hour or so later. The pain was an intense dull ache. If I hadn’t peed blood, I probably would have just suffered through it, because I grew up poor in USA without health insurance of any kind, and was acculturated to not taking medicine or receiving medical treatment unless mandated by law or in actual emergencies. Once I saw blood in the toilet bowl, I was much less reticent to go to the ER immediately, to put it lightly. My folks were first responders in a very remote rural area when I was growing up; I knew that much blood in my urine was potentially life-threatening without immediate medical interventions if blood clots were to form.

I still feel bad for the horse. It got spooked, and was entirely blameless, if a bit anxious. It was a windy day, and the tin roofs of the surrounding buildings set the horse off somehow. I had too much slack in the lead rope, the horse walked ahead just far enough away for me to be in the danger zone right behind. I saw a motion blur of horseflesh, reflexively covered my face, and took a rear hoof right below my ribs. I almost kept my grip on the rope, but some part of my mind decided to let the horse win this one, and I dropped it right as my legs gave out from the impact and the sudden pain. The horse ran, and trampled it’s own rope, broke the bit in its mouth. The poor thing’s tongue was cut top to bottom, and halfway across.

I failed the horse in my careless handling and lack of empathy and situational awareness on that day. As these were racehorses, I’m glad that they received medical care and made a full recovery after missing some races. On balance, maybe the horse got off easy compared to how hard they run them on race days.

That was the worst experience I had with a horse. The second worse was being lifted off the ground by my bicep by a mother horse when I calmly petted her daughter. And the younger horse was nearly as big as her, so not a baby by any means.

Horses are to be respected. All animals ought to be; doubly so for those that can literally trample you to death.

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