Actuary at an Insurance Company
Use math to price risk for millions of people — and get paid exceptionally well to do it.
Entry Pay
$70K–$95K
total comp
Hours / Week
~42
on average
Remote
Hybrid
flexibility
Specializations
4
paths to choose
Overview
Employers
Sector Vibe
Insurance companies collect premiums and pay claims — and actuaries are the mathematicians who make sure the pricing, reserving, and risk management actually works. Life, health, property & casualty (P&C), and reinsurance companies all employ actuaries, with career paths shaped by the Society of Actuaries (SOA) or Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) exam tracks.
Day in the Life
Career Ladder
Career Levels
Actuarial Student / Analyst (0 exams passed)
- →Learn actuarial software (Prophet, MG-ALFA, AXIS, or Moses depending on company)
- →Support senior actuaries on data preparation, model runs, and documentation
- →Begin the actuarial exam track — Exam P (Probability) and Exam FM (Financial Mathematics) are typically taken before or during the first year
- →Build Excel and basic R or Python skills for data manipulation
- →Understand the regulatory and reporting environment your company operates in
Actuarial Analyst (1–3 exams passed)
- →Own specific components of the quarterly or annual reserve calculation
- →Build pricing models for new or revised insurance products
- →Prepare experience studies — comparing actual vs. expected mortality, lapse, or loss ratios
- →Draft actuarial memos and regulatory filings under senior review
- →Study for and pass actuarial exams at a rate of roughly one per year
Associate Actuary (4–6 exams / ASA or ACAS designation)
- →Lead reserve studies, pricing analyses, or capital modeling projects independently
- →Sign off on actuarial work products — your name goes on the analysis
- →Manage relationships with regulators, external auditors, and rating agencies
- →Mentor junior actuarial analysts on technical work and exam strategy
- →Complete the final fellowship requirements: modules, professionalism course, Associateship
Fellow Actuary (FSA or FCAS designation)
- →Serve as Appointed Actuary — signing the actuarial opinion on statutory reserves (a legal responsibility)
- →Lead an actuarial department or center of excellence
- →Design and oversee company-wide actuarial models and methodologies
- →Present actuarial findings to the Board of Directors and C-suite
- →Manage a team of actuarial analysts and associates
Chief Actuary / VP of Actuarial
- →Oversee all actuarial functions: pricing, reserving, capital, product development
- →Sit on the company's executive leadership team
- →Interface with the board, regulators, and rating agencies as the actuarial authority
- →Set actuarial strategy — which risks the company takes on and how they're priced
- →Hire and develop the actuarial talent pipeline
Specializations
Life & Health Pricing Actuary
3–6 yearsYou determine how much to charge for life insurance, disability, long-term care, and health insurance products. You analyze mortality tables, morbidity rates, lapse behavior, and investment returns to set premiums that are competitive in the market but profitable for the company. Life pricing actuaries sit at the intersection of product strategy and math — when you get it right, the product sells well and earns money for decades.
↑ Pricing actuaries command slight premiums over reserving roles — 5–15% — because of the revenue impact of their work
Property & Casualty (P&C) Actuary — FCAS Track
4–8 years (FCAS fellowship takes slightly longer than ACAS)P&C actuaries work on auto, home, commercial liability, workers' compensation, and catastrophe insurance — the Casualty Actuarial Society (FCAS) path rather than the Society of Actuaries (FSA) path. P&C pricing is particularly data-rich and analytically dynamic. Cat (catastrophe) modeling — analyzing exposure to hurricanes, earthquakes, and wildfires — is one of the most technically interesting areas in all of insurance actuarial work.
↑ P&C cat modeling specialists and senior pricing actuaries at large insurers often earn at the top of actuarial ranges — 10–20% premium over generalist reserving
Actuarial Consultant
4–8 years (typically move from carrier after ASA/ACAS, or after FSA/FCAS)Instead of working for one insurance company, actuarial consultants (at firms like Milliman, WTW, Aon, Oliver Wyman) advise multiple insurance companies simultaneously — on pricing reviews, reserve opinions, M&A due diligence, litigation support, and regulatory compliance. Higher pay, more variety, more travel, and you build expertise across many different companies and product types. The consulting track is the most common exit from a carrier actuarial role for people who want higher earnings and broader exposure.
↑ Consulting actuaries at large firms (Milliman, WTW) typically earn 20–35% more than equivalent-level carrier actuaries
Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) / Capital Modeling
8–12 years (typically a post-Fellowship specialization)Instead of pricing individual products, you model the total risk of the entire company — using stochastic models to simulate thousands of scenarios and determine how much capital the company needs to hold to survive extreme events. ERM actuaries interact directly with the CFO, the board's risk committee, and rating agencies. This is actuarial work at its most strategic.
↑ ERM and capital actuaries at the Fellow level are among the highest-compensated in the profession — often $200K–$300K+ total comp at large carriers
Exit Opportunities
Compensation
📍 Location: Hartford, CT (the 'Insurance Capital of the US') and New York City have the highest concentrations of actuarial roles at insurance companies. Chicago, Des Moines (IA), Minneapolis, and Philadelphia are also major insurance hubs. Unlike investment banking, actuarial roles are widely distributed across mid-sized cities — Des Moines is home to Principal Financial, AIG has major operations in multiple cities, and regional carriers exist everywhere. Remote work has become very common in actuarial since COVID — many actuaries work 100% remotely. Each actuarial exam passed typically triggers a salary increase of $3,000–$8,000, making the exam milestones directly legible in your paycheck.
Source: SOA Annual Actuarial Salary Survey 2024, CAS Actuarial Compensation Study 2024, BLS OES 15-2011 (2024) · 2024
Education
Best Majors
Alternative Majors
Key Courses to Take
Top Programs
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign — Department of Mathematics
BSB.S. in Actuarial Science
Consistently ranked #1 or #2 actuarial science program in the US. UIUC's program is integrated with the math department and produces some of the strongest exam-passers in the country. The Actuarial Science Club and campus recruiting from major insurance companies (State Farm, CNA, Zurich) are exceptional. Many UIUC actuarial graduates enter with 2–3 exams already passed.
University of Wisconsin–Madison — Risk and Insurance
BSB.S. in Actuarial Science / Risk Management & Insurance
Top-5 actuarial program with strong recruiting pipelines to Travelers, Northwestern Mutual, and Wisconsin-based carriers. UW-Madison has a Center for Actuarial Excellence designation from the SOA. Strong quantitative curriculum with practical risk management coursework.
University of Connecticut — Department of Mathematics
BSB.S. in Mathematics with Actuarial Science track
Located in Hartford, CT — the center of the US insurance industry. UConn students have direct access to internships and entry-level recruiting at Hartford Financial, Aetna/CVS, and Lincoln National. SOA Center for Actuarial Excellence designation. Excellent placement rates for actuarial graduates.
Temple University — Fox School of Business
BBAB.B.A. in Actuarial Science
Top-10 actuarial program in the US, unusual in being housed in a business school rather than a math department — gives actuarial students broader business and finance exposure alongside the technical core. Strong recruiting from Philadelphia-area carriers (Lincoln National, Cigna, Independence Blue Cross). Very strong pass rate on early exams.
A master's degree is rarely necessary or even recommended for actuaries. The professional exam pathway (ASA/FSA or ACAS/FCAS) IS the advanced credential, and employers care far more about exam progress than graduate degrees. A master's in actuarial science, statistics, or financial mathematics can help if you have a non-actuarial undergrad degree and want to pivot, or if you want to work in academic actuarial research. Some actuaries pursue an MBA after their fellowship to move into senior management or consulting, but it's not a common path. The exam track and on-the-job experience are far more career-determinative than any degree you'd get after your bachelor's.
School to Career
The stuff you're learning right now directly applies to this career — often in ways your teacher hasn't mentioned.
Courses That Matter
AP Calculus BC
Actuarial Exam P (Probability) requires calculus — computing probability density functions, expected values, variances, and conditional probabilities all involve integration and differentiation. Every actuarial exam through the fellowship level assumes you're fluent in calculus. AP Calculus BC is the single most important course for a future actuary to take, and a 5 on the BC exam is a strong signal to actuarial programs.
AP Statistics
Actuaries work with data constantly — fitting distributions to historical loss data, testing whether a pricing model's predictions match actual experience, and building regression models to predict claim costs. AP Statistics introduces the foundational concepts (distributions, hypothesis testing, regression) that show up in every actuarial exam and in the day-to-day work. It's also excellent preparation for Exam P.
AP Economics (Micro and/or Macro)
Insurance is an economic product — people buy it because they're risk-averse, and companies price it using economic incentive theory, supply/demand dynamics, and competitive market analysis. AP Economics gives you the framework for understanding why insurance markets work the way they do, and the business context that senior actuaries need to make good pricing decisions.
AP Computer Science A
Modern actuarial work is increasingly computational — building simulation models in R or Python, automating data pipelines, and using machine learning for pricing. AP Computer Science A teaches you the programming fundamentals that make actuarial modeling much faster and more powerful. Actuaries who can code are substantially more productive than those who can't.
Pre-Calculus / Algebra II
The actuarial exams start with Exam FM (Financial Mathematics) — compound interest, annuities, loan amortization, bond pricing. These are advanced algebra concepts applied to finance. A very strong algebra foundation makes the financial math on Exam FM tractable. Future actuaries should take the most advanced math their school offers.
AP Physics C: Mechanics
AP Physics C isn't directly relevant to insurance — but it teaches you to apply calculus to solve real-world problems under timed exam conditions, think about systems analytically, and work through problems methodically. These are exactly the skills actuarial exams test. Many actuarial high scorers studied physics.
Extracurriculars That Count
Actuarial Exam P or FM before college
Exam P (Probability) and Exam FM (Financial Mathematics) are the first two actuarial exams and can legally be taken by anyone, regardless of age or enrollment. A high school student who passes Exam P before starting college enters their freshman year as an immediate recruiting target for actuarial internships. It's an extraordinary signal of quantitative ability and professional commitment. Study materials are available from Coaching Actuaries and The Infinite Actuary.
Math Team / MATHCOUNTS / AMC
Actuarial exams are timed math competitions at their core — especially in the early exam level. Students who compete seriously in math competitions (AMC 10/12, AIME, MATHCOUNTS) develop the rapid mathematical problem-solving ability that makes early actuarial exams much more manageable. Math team is the most direct preparation available.
Actuarial Club (if your college has one) / Finance Club
Many universities with actuarial programs have actuarial clubs that host study sessions for the professional exams, career panels with actuaries, and recruiting events with insurance companies. Even before college, identifying these clubs and the companies that recruit from them helps you target the right programs.
“If you're the person who actually enjoys the math — not just gets it, but finds probability puzzles genuinely fun — and you want a career where your quantitative skills directly translate to high pay, job stability, and real-world impact, actuarial science is one of the best-kept secrets in finance. You don't need to code for 12 hours a day or hustle for VC funding. You just need to love the math and be willing to pass the exams.”
Who Got Here Before You
Jennifer Gillespie
Chief Actuary, Aflac; First African American Woman to Become a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries
Jennifer Gillespie broke major barriers in the actuarial profession — becoming the first African American woman to earn the FSA designation and rising to Chief Actuary at Aflac, one of the largest US supplemental insurance companies. She has been a prominent advocate for diversity in actuarial science and has mentored hundreds of actuarial students from underrepresented backgrounds through the Actuarial Foundation.
Rob Hoyt
Regents Professor, University of Georgia; Risk Management Scholar
Rob Hoyt is one of the foremost researchers in enterprise risk management and insurance economics. His work helped establish ERM as a formal discipline that actuaries practice — connecting the math of individual risk assessment to the strategic management of company-wide risk. His research has shaped how major insurance companies approach capital modeling and risk governance.
Frank Redington
Chief Actuary, Prudential (UK); Creator of Immunization Theory
Frank Redington developed immunization theory in 1952 — the mathematical framework that tells insurance companies and pension funds how to structure their investment portfolios so they're protected against interest rate changes. It's still used today by every major life insurer and pension fund in the world. He's an example of an actuary whose theoretical insight created a concept that moved trillions of dollars.
Where This Can Take You
Where This Career Can Take You
Quantitative Analyst at a Hedge Fund
The mathematical foundation of actuarial science — probability, stochastic processes, interest theory — overlaps heavily with quantitative finance. Actuaries who develop strong programming skills and financial markets knowledge can transition to quantitative analyst roles, especially in insurance-linked securities, catastrophe bonds, or risk modeling. The ASA or FSA credential is respected in quantitative finance circles.
Trigger: Actuary with strong mathematical and programming skills becomes interested in financial markets and pursues roles in derivatives pricing, risk modeling, or insurance-linked securities at hedge funds or asset managers
Financial Analyst / Transaction Advisory at a Bank or Consulting Firm
Insurance M&A deals require actuarial due diligence — assessing the adequacy of reserves, reviewing pricing assumptions, and modeling the economic value of insurance liabilities. Actuaries who work on deal teams develop financial modeling and client-facing skills that transfer well into transaction advisory, investment banking, or management consulting. A move to consulting (Milliman, WTW, Oliver Wyman) is the most common transition.
Trigger: Actuary working on M&A due diligence or embedded value analysis develops interest in the broader deal process and transitions to investment banking or consulting after a few years