We have our fun — we celebrate “Pi” day on March 14th

E ver heard the joke about the difference between actuaries and morticians? These three women have endured their fair share of actuary jokes and more. They discuss what it’s like to study hundreds of hours for tests you take for years on end (hard) why calculating risk is important (everyone needs insurance for something) and how to respond to someone who asks if you’re depressed because you spend all day deciding when people will die (no).

Rochel Leah Greisman

23 an actuarial analyst at Berkley Accident and Health in Hamilton Square New Jersey. She’s been working in the field for two years.

A lot of people aren’t sure what an actuary does all day. The job description in a nutshell:

It depends on the path you choose. There are two basic routes — life and health is one property and casualty is the second — and there are many types of actuaries in each field. Some examples: pricing actuaries help price products like an insurance premium. Reserve actuaries determine how much a company has to set aside to fund possible future liabilities. Product actuaries develop products from initial research to product monitoring.

In general an actuary thoroughly analyzes data and uses it to draw conclusions. She might research medical diagnosis categories that have a high probability of large claim amounts based on her company’s experience and external research and use that information to price products. I work as an entry-level actuarial analyst for a health insurance company collecting and organizing data on premiums reserves and paid claims. My superiors analyze that data as an indicator of how the company performed.

I also create data-tracking reports. For example a policy is priced based on expected claims and we track the actual claims to see if our assumptions were correct. We have a program that can produce these reports but a lot of the data we need is too specific and complex for a computer to generate so yes even with advanced technology and sophistication there’s still the need for humans.

Friends ask if spending my day figuring out how likely it is that John Doe will drop dead is depressing. I tell them…

While my job isn’t actually figuring out the likelihood of John Doe dropping dead I’m exposed to a lot of situations with mortally ill people. When I first started working I overheard someone in the office saying “Well if this person would just die then we’d be able to price this group at a much lower rate ” and “Seriously so-and-so is on her tenth life when will she expire?” It’s disturbing but no one knows who any of these people are it’s more theoretical than actual. Determining the likelihood of John Doe dying is more of an abstract concept than a real one.
One of my monthly projects includes high-claim analysis and sometimes I read details about the claimant’s medical state.