Can Actuaries REALLY use their skills outside their world say POLITICS

Hi all,

In light of the words of FM REDINGTON 'the Actuary who is only an Actuary, is not an Actuary', I want to ask a few things or to challenge the audience of this forum to a few things.

Has anyone here considered the contribution of Actuaries as strategy consultants to political parties and politicians willing to win elections. For example the statistics part regarding;-the age, sex, geographical locations of voters, Risk Management etc.

 

I dont know how relevant this would be... but i wrote an article based on CT7


http://polyticsind.blogspot.in/


Hope you enjoy the read!

 

I suspect the contribution actuaries can make is not so much around modelling election issues, which are generally well understood statistical problems with dedicated specialists who know more than we could. Where we can I think provide input is on long term issues and challenge the inevitably short to mid term nature of political thinking.

 

There are definitely parallels with actuarial work, i.e. analysing data are using it to aid strategic decision-making. However, I would tend not to think of this kind of work as actuarial, since it doesn't relate to financial risk in quite the same way.

 

I think actuaries should be far more involved in large scale capital project planning. For example if a government is considering infrastructure investment, or a company is considering a new plant, etc.

These are the sorts of areas where our longer term focus on financial risk can be extremely useful, but is presently very underused.

 

Actuaries need to sell their skills like lawyers to be good politicians. Actuaries need to be extroverts. I imagine at least 75% are introverts. But there goes the problem..most scientifc professions require introversion to be successful including actuarial science, medicine, physics etc.

At least we have a communications paper!

Interesting article. Nicely done.

 

Dey tuk yer jaabs!

 

I Agree with cjno1

I do very much agree with cjno1.....I worked as a Highways modeller/Pavement engineer with an engineering consultancy before making the jump into the actuarial field.

I have worked on certain massive highway projects on the M20, M23 etc...and in order for the Highway agency to authorise financing of most projects, we were required to built whole-life-cost models (Project appraisal) for the projects which will justify such massive investment.

You can't begin to imagine how flawed these models are, especially since most of the methods used are supposed to be from some highway agency guidance documents, written god knows when.


Anyway my point is, when I started studying CT1 as I decided to change career, I could see how flawed our whole-life cost models were, just from my limited actuarial knowlegde.

I am very positive that actuaries could be of significant help in infrastructure projects.

 

I agree wholeheartedly with this! I have recently left (life) actuarial employment to start-up a company focussed on infrastructure development (in the emerging market renewable energy space). The ability to build robust cash-flow models is critical in order to convince project financiers (and yourself!) that the infrastructure projects are viable and ultimately can be scaled. This is an area that an actuarial skillset can be useful although we also need to supplement the technical training with softer skills - this is crucial if we are to remain relevant.

I strongly believe that there is a great opportunity for actuaries to get involved in this space & to play a really significant role. It's vital that we stay nimble as a profession and assist in solving some of the major problems around the world.

 

I was part of the team that set up a commodity futures exchange in my country and while it was a very non actuarial role there were plenty of actuarial skills I drew upon. For instance margining of futures contracts is very mathematical and uses CT3 and CT8 knowledge. Risk management and even the actuarial control cycle from CA1 were used when preparing rules and regulations for the exchange. Basics learnt in CA1 CT1 CT8 and CT3 came in extremely handy when preparing things such as stress tests for the default fund.

 

Interesting. What did Actuaries say?

Apparently health care premiums have shot up in America since Obamacare's been implemented.

 

There are plenty of people high-up in the Actuary world as it is who play the spin doctor game like lawyers do. I think the world needs less of that and more honesty.

 

Depends on your perspective. Premiums have certainly shot up if you're young and healthy, but premiums have suddenly become drastically more affordable for those who are old or have pre-existing conditions, which was the point of the legislation.

I agree though, the implications of obamacare were not thought through properly, the $100 fine for not getting insurance is waaaaay less than it would cost the healthy young people to get insurance, so many are happy to pay the fine. And obviously the whole system only works if the young and healthy subsidise the old and unhealthy, so if too many opt-out the system will collapse.

You have to either force everyone to pay for state health care, or you need to have an entirely private system (I would prefer the latter). Trying to have a happy medium just doesn't seem to work.