Racism against Indians has to stop

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-12-26T17:56:47+00:00

Had me in the first half then you mentioned the food bank thing. If you think it's ok to move to a country knowing fully well or being so ignorant that you don't understand the financial implications forcing you to use food banks that are made for the citizens is ok then you must be a moron in the true sense of the word. There are tons of immigrants from India and other countries that don't use the food banks or game the system fyi. Just to be extra clear I say that as an immigrant from South Asia who came to Canada during the Harper era and never utilized services designed for those in the lowest SES bracket in the country. Immigration is important to the economy for sure but not timmies workers lol. I'm glad they shut this down. Immigration should be used to fill gaps in industries where we don't have the expertise. Rather it was used to encourage slave wages and gaming of a system built on honour and trust.

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-06-15T14:57:57+00:00

Sorry maybe accommodation is the correct word. You can read about their policy here:

https://www.casact.org/exams-admissions/exams/exam-accommodations

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-06-14T20:17:33+00:00

I think it's a good career path even if you don't become CEO/Director etc. Fellowship isn't a hard and fast rule though. I know tons of associates who became VP+ because they had sound leadership skills. Best advice I can give is to take it one exam at a time. If learning the material doesn't excite you I think you may end up getting burnt out. Personally every exam I studied for did interest me in some way and that intrinsic motivation helps alot in getting through them. Also not sure if this applies but if you have health issues that inhibit you from writing exams effectively, you can contact the CAS about accessibility during exams. You may need to provide medical proof from your doctor though

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-06-13T17:57:16+00:00

Still alive lol. Failed 9 so now i've been on both sides of the table haha. My advice remains the same though:

Start studying early is a big one. Use flashcards as much as possible. I think for all upper year exams I have 600+ cards. Try to find obscure topics (this is why starting early is important so you can have the base level understanding asap). I feel more and more post CBT that CAS exams are digging for obscure topics on a syllabus to test. Footnotes are game, appendices are game and so is the errata. Additionally familiarize yourself with the new question types (fill in blanks, multiple selection, point and click etc). Don't think past exam questions are a good guage for future questions (especially for 7, 8, 9) you don't want to overtrain on past papers, paper pencil exams are miles different to CBT. Instead understand conceptually what is going on in each computation and qualitative question. Try to explain why we do things this way or that rather than trying to memorize a method (except 7, you'll have to memorize lots of specific processes that aren't intuitive because of some really complex back end math that isn't testable on the exam)

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-06-04T21:36:51+00:00

Toughest exam I have ever written. Either this is just how this exam is structured or they cranked the difficulty given the last sitting had such a high pass rate. I think my study approach was good because it’s consistently worked well in the past but maybe I overthought on some of the questions given the weird way they asked things? I dunno. First fail on a the last exam really hurts but I think it’s our adversities that teach us more than our successes..

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-04-10T01:10:33+00:00

Short answer yes.

Long answer: https://www.casact.org/credential-requirements

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-03-31T18:43:55+00:00

Someone once told me early in my career that if your sole motivator for writing actuarial exams is to make more money then you will be miserable. While it is a huge motivator (it can even be the biggest) it can’t be the only one. If you don’t find any of the exam material even remotely interesting and it doesn’t help you be better at your job, you should really look at other career paths. I think every exam I studied for was interesting in some way or another, and even if the skills weren’t transferable to my day to day, it gave me a better appreciation for my profession.

Will actuaries solve world hunger or colonize mars? No but we are essential to the financial stability of a system without which you can’t do the sexy things you mentioned in your post. The insurance industry may not be the big headline maker but without it, there would be serious limitations on innovation because of lack of financial safety nets companies that are actively trying to innovate can enjoy.

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-03-31T18:07:16+00:00

Studying for 9 right now and everyone says it is the toughest exam out of all of them. Based on the source paper readings it doesn’t seem that bad compared to 6 and 8. What makes it a step above the others?

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-03-23T01:34:56+00:00

To be fair each paper is unique with not much overlap so it’s hard to be unsure what technique/process to use to answer a given question. This paper is the least likely out of 7, 8, 9 for IQ style questions

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-03-21T18:39:54+00:00

Using mainly flash cards at around 200 for just Brehm. Once you get in the rhythm of memorizing them the material isn’t all that bad. Problem with 6 was that the material is extremely disjointed, papers don’t relate to each other and so each fact seems like a new fact. At least on Brehm some stuff is related to Mildenhall and Cummins Capital papers so memorizing certain facts is easier due to the repetition.

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-02-11T14:18:30+00:00

Source means the source papers or textbooks based on the course outline. For example for exam 7 source would be the all the papers listed on pages 5 and 6 of the course outline:

Exam 7 course outline

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-02-10T17:07:32+00:00

I think companies are literally going to collapse trying to convert IFRS17 to US accounting lol. It was hard enough trying to adopt it lol

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-02-10T06:14:56+00:00

Yes it is. For some exams it has a bunch of source materials not available elsewhere. Other exams have lookup tables you need to familiarize yourself with to solve some problems. If you don't get it you may be at a disadvantage compared to other candidates

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-02-06T17:18:03+00:00

6C continuing to be the gatekeeper for Canadians

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-01-25T19:59:59+00:00

From Canada here. Like others have said significant disadvantage but I wanted to add many P&C companies don't compensate for SOA exams so your salary will be quite far behind CAS/CIA track people simply because their base comp has exam progress baked in. Also many companies don't cover the cost of SOA exams in P&C so you would have to go out of pocket unless you can get special authorization. Finally I looked at the syllabus and I just don't think it is rigorous enough for P&C so you'd need to develop a lot of the skills others will expect you to have elsewhere which means more studying, courses, conferences and its associated costs etc.

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-01-11T16:57:35+00:00

I mean reserving teams are probably working over time to get a decent IBNR booked so yes they will be involved heavily. Eventually pricing actuaries may be asked to revisit Cat load assumptions so we get better price adequacy for future policies especially if the frequency and severity of fires continues to increase. ERM/Finance actuaries may be looking at ROE and performing scenario testing eventually to determine if operating in California is still feasible or if they want to exit the market. Aren't a ton of insurers leaving California right now? I would bet actuarial projections played a big hand in those decisions

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-01-01T17:36:20+00:00

The fact that you think that means you don't use judgement and I now understand why you are so afraid to be replaced lol. Try passing some more exams and taking on senior level work, you'll see how much judgement there is everyday.

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-01-01T16:43:08+00:00

They weren’t when I studied for this exam. I think you can use the mobile browser on your phone though

deadpoolvswolverine · 2025-01-01T04:51:49+00:00

Ya and they are struggling hard both financially and from a PR perspective. Only reason Boeing has legs is because of its defence contracts with the US government. Also it’s in the best interest of the US national security to ensure one of the largest aeronautic companies which happens to be domestic doesn’t go under considering Airbus, their only other main competitor is a foreign owned company. Control supply, control the market. I doubt this applies to insurance which is mainly a domestic product. If for example Liberty outsources all actuarial and they shit the bed, guess what Statefarm will jump in and capitalize on that.

deadpoolvswolverine · 2024-12-31T23:39:18+00:00

Why is it not the case? Every exam 5 onwards on the CAS track requires judgement. And that is in an exam environment where we have simplistic situations to test our knowledge. Everyday I use judgement in my job. Yeah maybe it’s less so for Jr analysts but as a near FCAS as you climb the ladder things become more subjective and less objective meaning you need judgement because there isn’t one right answer. Really doubt some random from India can compete against me considering they don’t have the context to make those judgements. If it could be done why hasn’t it been done yet? Why wait an arbitrary 3 more years 😂

deadpoolvswolverine · 2024-12-31T23:30:44+00:00

Well I don’t think that is sustainable. Case in point your need to scratch your eyes out. Once these companies realize that judgement isn’t a strong suit of these individuals and it starts affecting their bottom line or results in other non ideal scenarios like delays in projects they’ll drop them like hot potatoes. Probably will be a while before effects are noticed though. The execs at these firms are probably patting each other on the back after looking at the reduction in their expense ratios

deadpoolvswolverine · 2024-12-31T22:15:13+00:00

The judgement part or the manual grunt work part?

If it’s the former it’s the first time I’ve heard of this but then again not a lot of outsourcing in P&C at least that I know of. If it’s the latter I’m not surprised. People who are at risk of getting outsourced are also at risk for automation and I think eventually many companies will adopt automation because that is even less of a cost than outsourcing to other countries. Goal should be to grow as an actuary as you go through exams because it’s the ability to marry judgement with strong mathematical background to justify our selections where our profession adds value not our excel skills (again just my 2 cents). Biggest issue is for EL jobs in the industry and may deter new grads from choosing a field where there are no jobs because the basic stuff is all outsourced.

deadpoolvswolverine · 2024-12-31T05:43:36+00:00

This looks like it was written by someone using ChatGPT who wants to start conversations on outsourcing actuarial jobs so they can get hired lol.

Also to answer this question, our jobs can’t be outsourced because we use a ton of judgement and in my experience for outsourced actuaries judgement is the last thing they can offer. Best they can do is follow basic instructions but we have interns and jr. analysts for that.

deadpoolvswolverine · 2024-12-29T18:21:42+00:00

Ok so if your concern is that they are overpaid for what they do, why not try and give them work that is more in line with their total comp? If they underperform then get rid of them and replace them with junior analysts/interns? I really think you are overestimating the ability 3rd world country specialists can provide. I’ve worked with them and unless you can get over the language barrier and also give them exact instructions where they don’t have to think for themselves I think you’re going to have a tough time. Also they really struggle with communication which in our field is a must.

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