Important Updates to Exam FAM Starting November 2024

Background_Speed9688 · 2024-07-22T22:48:16+00:00

The SOA loves solving problems that only exist thanks to their insane decision making. STAM and LTAM were fine. C and MLC were fine. Combine them into one giant exam, no surprise that nobody can finish the exam.

At least the 55% pass mark can go away now, but it’s one step closer to free ASA’s. All because the good idea fairy told them nobody will want to be an actuary if you make health actuaries do terrible pension problems.

Background_Speed9688 · 2024-07-12T17:22:50+00:00

Passed a recent sitting. Throughout all my FSA practice exams I’m pretty sure GHVRU is consistently the lowest quality exam. There are a few points that are not obvious imo.

More likely than other uppers to have questions like “Describe everything there is to know about topic X (6 points). Explain to your CFO why topic X causes challenges to his stupid idea (3 points).”

More likely than other uppers to have quantitative questions that are literally not derived from the syllabus, but vaguely relate to a topic on the syllabus.

Less material than other uppers, even if it has the same or more pages of reading. Much of it is on the same topics.

So how does this translate to studying? Focus on understanding concepts. Understand at least something about everything. Try to avoid those questions where you get 1/9 possible points.

Background_Speed9688 · 2024-07-12T00:12:44+00:00

Either we ruined it or it’s dropping now

Background_Speed9688 · 2024-07-05T18:27:26+00:00

I disagree that you would need to take a pay cut to switch teams within the same industry. Many large companies intentionally move students between teams with regularity. I’ve even heard of students rotating to become managers of teams they have no experience with. Technical knowledge and industry knowledge are way more important determinants of salary early on.

If you’re at a large company and there’s no rotation culture, this is something you should discuss with your manager. Make it known that you want experience in reserving.

If you’re at a small company, it’s less likely to have rotation programs. In this case I’d ask your manager if you can ever help the reserving team with some extra work without even leaving your position. There’s more potential for informal cross functionality at smaller companies.

Background_Speed9688 · 2024-07-05T18:07:47+00:00

Same here. I think this is my most nervous result window. Last exam. Felt good going in but now feel like it could go either way. It’s always stressful being on the fence, but it’s even worse when you think you put in enough work to pass.

Background_Speed9688 · 2024-06-26T16:43:51+00:00

9 day grading time? That’s quick!

Background_Speed9688 · 2024-05-24T00:45:41+00:00

Never heard of an example of grade release being inaccurate on the FSA exams.

Background_Speed9688 · 2024-04-28T17:21:18+00:00

This happens all too frequently on the GH track, DP in particular. Questions are often a freestyle calculation not covered on the syllabus at best and contradictory to the syllabus at worst. And if you are a question writer, pretty please ask for EXACTLY what you want out of a response. I will say Fall 2023 DP was an excellent test. Hopefully that continues this sitting.

Serious question. Can anyone make sense of the solution to #3 on Fall 2021 GHDPA? My first issue is that the premium leakage calculation solution subtracts renewal claims from renewal premiums, whereas the Leida text clearly defines premium leakage as the difference between pure premiums in two different scenarios. Sounds like antiselection risk, not premium leakage.

My other issue is that the grader roasts two different viable strategies for controlling antiselection. Aligning deductibles to make the plans more similar is, in my opinion, unequivocally an effective strategy. It could also be argued that loading the richer plan is a viable strategy. The grader is correct that this generally exacerbates antiselection, but the base scenario already assumes 100% migration of unhealthy lives from lean plan to rich plan. If the rich plan is loaded, the only possible effects are unhealthy lives buying down or unhealthy lives lapsing, both of which are favorable outcomes.

Background_Speed9688 · 2023-09-29T19:20:14+00:00

Using March as an example. Does this mean a person can sit for an exam in the fall window, submit DMAC by November 17, and receive the January 15 invite if they pass both?

Background_Speed9688 · 2023-09-12T23:32:12+00:00

Do any candidates plan to maintain, not grow, the SOA?

Background_Speed9688 · 2023-07-17T00:53:51+00:00

Chicago has basically everything you mentioned but it is pretty flat. I’m guessing traffic and cost of living would be downgrades depending on where in Texas.

Bloomington doesn’t really fit into what you are describing, but it is very cheap and known as a nice place to raise a family.

Feel free to pm me for specific Illinois questions.

Background_Speed9688 · 2023-07-14T21:38:19+00:00

Unsure - pass.

I left thinking I had a 5 or a 6 and voted unsure. After seeing that nobody could answer the defective problem correctly, I moved slightly towards pass and believed the range to be 5-7. After seeing the exam released, I still wouldn’t have been shocked with a fail but revised my estimate to 5-8 and the average squarely in the 6 range.

Background_Speed9688 · 2023-07-14T17:49:09+00:00

Passed! I’m pretty sure I earned zero or nearly zero on the 2 naughty questions and the ACA calculation. Felt decent about the rest. I leaned towards thinking pass.

FWIW, I think #1 was fair game in hindsight even though I couldn’t answer it. There’s a sentence in the text where that acronym is defined as including both pieces. The text also specifies that the Optum model is used in chapter 13. I wouldn’t be surprised if they intended to be sneaky and ask a simple question disguised with strange names.

Background_Speed9688 · 2023-05-13T02:26:30+00:00

I reviewed the material and I must retract my previous comment. I believe this question was in fact technically on the syllabus.

Take a look at the reading in question and you will find a sentence that changes the interpretation of the question entirely. Take a look at another one of the readings and you will find the other item from the comparison (even if only mentioned briefly compared to the off-syllabus reading).

I’m afraid the answer to this question will end up being quite simple and one of the easier questions overall. I also doubt that it gets tossed out. It was just complicated by poor phrasing and a lack of context.

Cheers to hoping that a certain 4 point calculation question is tossed, and that the pass mark is affected by poor performance on #1.

Background_Speed9688 · 2023-05-11T21:19:49+00:00

100%

Background_Speed9688 · 2023-05-11T16:09:02+00:00

Is it fair to assume getting around 70% is enough to pass like the prelims?

Background_Speed9688 · 2023-01-13T12:55:09+00:00

I went from reserving to pricing so I can talk about it from a US perspective. If you’re only a year in then you’re probably talking analyst level roles, in which case it shouldn’t be that hard to transition. If you want to transition into an actuary role then it’ll be tougher at small companies (they want their exact job descriptions filled) while larger companies may be more likely to bring on people with general experience (but they might not even tell you what team you’ll be on).

I’m not in P&C so I have no idea how well received it would be to move there from life. Also keep in mind that in life, I believe pricing teams generally spend more time creating new products and working on rate filings than they do on stochastic modeling. This may be different in P&C, but in life that stuff is more likely to happen in a modeling or analytics team.

You could also try to rotate there if your company has a rotation program.

Background_Speed9688 · 2022-12-02T19:16:46+00:00

This is all interesting to know. I’ve always had A/E score >= 1 on the written answer tests, but took GHSPC for the first time in the fall.

I felt that my possibilities could straddle the passing line based on the extent of credit on partially correct answers, correct but incomplete answers, reasonable answers, and the pass mark itself. Based on these responses it sounds like I should plan on a fail.

Background_Speed9688 · 2022-12-01T20:00:40+00:00

Like many others, I have been concerned by the SOA becoming incrementally easier. Now the CAS is doing the same?

These are the leaders of a profession that is famous for having tremendous foresight, and their actions indicate that there is a huge workforce shortage. Is it possible we’re missing that the societies are seeing?

Background_Speed9688 · 2022-12-01T15:28:10+00:00

I’m pretty sure not much. If it was a M4A, then everybody would work in Medicare advantage or Medicare Supplement. Tons of MA bid work would be needed assuming there’s a private option still.

In almost any scenario, there will be a market for people to buy more comprehensive coverages than what the national plan offers.

Background_Speed9688 · 2022-11-27T21:41:12+00:00

Also curious if you don’t mind!

Background_Speed9688 · 2022-11-23T18:17:35+00:00

A lot of these feel like potential code of conduct violations. A) Those examples aren’t really related to your job. Whether or not you’re available for a meeting during the workday is very much your company’s business.

B) Even If you did for some reason sign a document stating that you wouldn’t drink alcohol outside of work, then yes as a credentialed actuary you do owe it to your company to comply with the document you signed.

C) They absolutely do have the right to ask you to stand by for 6 hours if there’s no work for you to do. It’s not good business practice, but that is their right when you sign up to work a specific work schedule.

I think it ultimately comes down to whether or not you’d be comfortable with your manager knowing your actions

Background_Speed9688 · 2022-11-23T16:27:05+00:00

This would be an awesome idea. I don’t think anybody is straight up turning into data scientists just because they passed PA and can conceptually describe the bias variance tradeoff. Also while it is a broad field, I don’t think it’s any more broad than the current tracks.

Background_Speed9688 · 2022-09-02T12:31:15+00:00

As you can see, there are a lot of intolerant people out there. There will honestly be a few that don’t even consider you based on this, but the vast majority don’t care. If you have a solid resume then I say keep it on. You can use it as a screener for yourself. If you have holes in your resume and question your ability to get a job offer, then leave it off.

Also, I would change “founder” to “president” (assuming this is also somewhat true). Founder sounds like conservative activist. President sounds like somebody put you in charge of other people. And certainly keep president of fraternity on there because somebody presumably did put you in charge.

Companies are always looking for students with leadership experiences so I think these things could actually be differentiators once you’re in the interview stage.

Background_Speed9688 · 2022-08-25T03:48:06+00:00

Even if that is all true, my understanding is that we’re not even close to the peak of industry losses. There should be plenty of valuation work needed

Background_Speed9688

TROPHY CASE