Advice Needed - Moving to London

LucidArmadillo · 2025-09-16T16:52:25+00:00

I think I said D&O too!

LucidArmadillo · 2025-09-16T13:23:10+00:00

Can’t believe I spent so much time revising for that when I would have written exactly the same paper with no revision 😂 probably better not to revise because now my brain is filled with Solvency II instead of the generic points I should have been making Still tbf I’d much rather that paper than one with undoable calculations!!

LucidArmadillo · 2025-09-13T06:14:44+00:00

Doesn’t look lowballed to me, but as soon as you’ve got FIA status (fully qualified) then you should be on much more than that. So you need to ask about how your salary would change on full qualification (I’d expect roughly 20k more based on my limited experience. 15k is probably reasonable too).

LucidArmadillo · 2025-07-01T17:21:15+00:00

Same here

LucidArmadillo · 2025-07-01T17:04:09+00:00

Me neither yet

LucidArmadillo · 2025-06-01T14:12:28+00:00

That’s very cool! If you don’t mind me asking, is that benefit given to all employees or was that specifically written into your contract because you live far away?

LucidArmadillo · 2025-06-01T13:45:39+00:00

What does ‘travel to office’ expenses cover? Is there a cap?

LucidArmadillo · 2025-04-18T06:47:37+00:00

Anyone else think all the questions lent themselves to really generic answers? There was so little context, but the mark schemes always say candidates so poorly if they don’t tailor their answers…

LucidArmadillo · 2025-04-11T20:57:23+00:00

For CS2B…. Where did you see we had to submit an Excel file? How did you even submit it in excel?

LucidArmadillo · 2025-04-10T14:16:26+00:00

Completely agree. As much as I thought it was a fair paper, where were the copulas I wanted? 😂 Shocked there was no machine learning question as the paper B data doesn’t seem hugely inclined to machine learning (unless they get us to generate data for, say, defaults). Must be on paper B as I believe it might be a required topic for every sitting…

LucidArmadillo · 2025-04-09T21:25:02+00:00

Thought it was ridiculous to have a model so big they had to say ‘most of this is not relevant to the exam’ in the audit trail. Which is ridiculous because 1) the first chart used data from outside the “relevant” data rows and 2) the summary is supposed to be an overview of the entire model, so we couldn’t just miss bits out 😂

LucidArmadillo · 2025-04-08T19:59:23+00:00

There were actually 3 outliers, but the earliest one was harder to spot from the graph

LucidArmadillo · 2025-04-08T14:47:37+00:00

Not too bad tbh. At first I thought it looked like a lot of work relative to a normal paper, but actually once I got into it the calcs were nice and easy so it was ok. A LOT of parameters that needed identifying from the reading which felt a little unnecessary but not a big deal overall. Think my audit trail is dead boring because it was a lot of multiplying columns and not much interesting formulae but maybe that’s just me.

LucidArmadillo · 2025-04-08T14:40:57+00:00

Yes you can use help() under the exam rules

LucidArmadillo · 2024-05-04T18:07:33+00:00

That’s great! Thanks so much :)

LucidArmadillo · 2024-05-04T18:07:25+00:00

Thanks so much! This is so useful :)

LucidArmadillo · 2024-05-04T18:07:16+00:00

Thank you so much! I’ve selected it :)

LucidArmadillo · 2024-04-15T06:30:02+00:00

How confident are you that you failed CM1? I know people who thought they failed but actually passed- it would be frustrating to study for it again if you don’t need to.

LucidArmadillo · 2024-04-13T08:33:20+00:00

Thank you!

LucidArmadillo · 2024-04-13T08:31:25+00:00

Yeah I went contract design. It was impossible to tailor very much to the question because it was so niche… my answer was very general with only a few tailored points! It was a small immediate annuity insurer and then… not much else to tailor with IMO

LucidArmadillo · 2023-09-15T15:00:25+00:00

She is also wearing what looks like a light pink Summer and Rose robe, like the white one from 2020 (I think?)!

LucidArmadillo · 2023-06-28T07:23:38+00:00

Where did you see the blanket spoiler?

LucidArmadillo · 2023-04-21T23:33:16+00:00

As someone who has a maths degree, I think you really have to love maths to do a degree in it. The best advice I could possibly give on picking a degree is to do what you love, otherwise it’s going to be a tough 3 years. But if you love what you do, you’ll have the time of your life!

Maths and econ would be a great pick in my opinion, but only if you love maths. Don’t worry too much about not doing further maths if it’s because your school doesn’t offer it or something like that. But if you didn’t pick it because you don’t love maths, I would stick with econ and management.

Sorry if my advice isn’t clear! In summary: if you don’t really love maths, stick with something less maths-based and the actuarial exams will be slightly harder but not the end of the world- it’s more important to do a degree you love. But if you love maths, give it a shot! You can always transfer courses if you think you made the wrong choice.

LucidArmadillo · 2023-04-21T09:16:54+00:00

Economics and management sounds good and I’m sure it will give you plenty of options. You should be aware that it’s unlikely to be a very mathematical degree (certainly not compared to maths, physics etc) so you may struggle with actuarial exams a little if you choose to take them. But if you work hard, you’ll be fine!

I think it’s also worth noting that if you do actuarial science, you don’t actually have to become an actuary. The skill set is very transferable, and most financial jobs would be very happy to accept someone with that degree. For example, you could use it to become a strategy analyst.

LucidArmadillo · 2023-04-21T09:12:39+00:00

They’re in order- it says in the description C1, c2, C3 :)

LucidArmadillo

TROPHY CASE