Sick of my job, literally Sick

No, I am not in banking, i dont work 100 hours a week but I AM SICK OF MY JOB. By the word sick, i mean sick as I disgust myself of the way i think of or treat clients... I feel like the Death guy in Family Guy...

I am a LIFE ACTUARIAL

The part that sickens me is of how we talk about death, how I sometimes have to tell an agent that their client has cancer so I should treat it as if he is going to die in less than a year which means he is a bad deal, how we "want" old people to die so that we dont pay any pensions to make some profit... I mean, we dont want them to die, but deep inside we want old people to die "in general"... it is sick... It is not like this everyday, or at least i havent realized it before...

 

Gotta love actuarial sciences.

Don't kid yourself. You want every single one of your elderly clients to die tomorrow. At least your bosses do. The only customer you want to live forever are those paying for universal insurance. And when THEY eventually die, you want them to do it in such a way that it voids their life insurance policy.

How does it feel to be a merchant of death?

 
Edmundo Braverman:
Gotta love actuarial sciences.

Don't kid yourself. You want every single one of your elderly clients to die tomorrow. At least your bosses do. The only customer you want to live forever are those paying for universal insurance. And when THEY eventually die, you want them to do it in such a way that it voids their life insurance policy.

How does it feel to be a merchant of death?

Well... I see them as numbers, it would be insane not to . You are right in everything you said. Seriously though, what is the image of Life Actuarials... is it like accountants or do people at least respect them?

 
toiysam:

Well... I see them as numbers, it would be insane not to . You are right in everything you said. Seriously though, what is the image of Life Actuarials... is it like accountants or do people at least respect them?

I thought the term was casualty actuary? I know a few actuary's and they are strange people... Very smart, but VERY strange. That would be my take on it.

And why does everyone hate accountants? All of the accountants I've met seem like decent people.

 
Edmundo Braverman:
Gotta love actuarial sciences.

Don't kid yourself. You want every single one of your elderly clients to die tomorrow. At least your bosses do. The only customer you want to live forever are those paying for universal insurance. And when THEY eventually die, you want them to do it in such a way that it voids their life insurance policy.

How does it feel to be a merchant of death?

Haha, excellent post. My mother told me the same thing.

I am not cocky, I am confident, and when you tell me I am the best it is a compliment. -Styles P
 

i dont work in the states, but it is more than what any of my classmates makes... headhunters call every week... I took the job because of the money and the skills you gain are really good. in the States, if you have a good training you make comfortably 200k.

Best Response
ideating:
What does your wishing have anything to do with it? Unless your company is actively hiring assassins, nothing you do or don't do impacts anyone's life - relax and worry about exit opportunities and b-school apps like the rest of WSO.

Like he said, I think you might be confusing the positive with the normative/making an is-ought fallacy/blurring Popper's line of demarcation, etc. I mean, the ideal (the normative/"ought" part) is that your clients do not die and they live happily ever after with their five billion children. But that's not reality: Reality is that they do die, and so there is a market for life insurance or whatever you're selling (as a tool to minimize the problems associated with unanticipated death), and in order for this service to continue, you have to use actuarial science techniques (like those you mentioned) to make sure that this service isn't bankrupting the service provider. In other words, you don't have to hope that your clients die or hope for anything else - it just happens.

In short, you shouldn't be disgusted with yourself.

Hope this helps.

 
toiysam:
i dont work in the states, but it is more than what any of my classmates makes... headhunters call every week... I took the job because of the money and the skills you gain are really good. in the States, if you have a good training you make comfortably 200k.

If you don't mind me asking, are you FSA (and how many years did it take you to get this)? How many years of experience, and where do you work (large/small city? large life insurance company or consulting? I'm guessing the former for both)? Do you have any other qualifications (CFA, etc.) or a graduate degree?

I'm at a finance target and double majoring in finance/math (3.9 freshman year), so I was planning on doing the actuarial exams in college (probably 3-4 prelims) while shooting for BB S&T junior summer. I'm a rising soph, and had an actuarial internship (life) this summer. From my research I concluded that even if I got my FSA within 3-5 years after graduation and work in NY for a large life insurance company, it'd still take around 10 years to hit 200k (not that being 30 years old making 200k for 50 hours/week is a bad thing...). Does this sound about right? If a higher salary is commonly achieved more quickly, then I might just skip S&T altogether since actuarial is more stable. Is it possible? (at a large life company - I'm guessing consulting would be possible if you had the client base)

toiysam:
Well... I see them as numbers, it would be insane not to . You are right in everything you said. Seriously though, what is the image of Life Actuarials... is it like accountants or do people at least respect them?

Anyone who knows what an actuary actually is and does would respect them, but generally only people in the insurance industry know. They're the kings of the insurance industry. The general population probably has no idea what they do or that the profession exists. People in finance might know what they do, but likely don't realize the difficulty/mathematical aptitude required to obtain an FSA/FCAS (you need to pass 10 math-intensive exams, most held only once a year, all way harder than CFA exams, with 60% fail rates). There are just so few actuaries in general and the academic bar is pretty high (unlike the millions of accountants everywhere).

Actuarial science/math is very similar to financial math and trading/risk management. Discounting future cash premiums to value policies, managing a reserve fund to ensure solvency when paying out claims, hedging downside risk through reinsurance, analyzing trends through technical indicators, etc.

surferdude867:
I thought the term was casualty actuary? I know a few actuary's and they are strange people... Very smart, but VERY strange. That would be my take on it.

And why does everyone hate accountants? All of the accountants I've met seem like decent people.

There are life actuaries and there are casualty actuaries, two different actuarial societies. SOA covers life/health/pensions/investments, CAS covers property/casualty/auto/etc. Anyone who would willingly pick a job where you have to pass ~10 math based exams to earn a professional qualification is likely to be very strange socially. You spend much of your twenties studying for math exams (though you get pay raises for every one you pass!)

Prestige is related to selectivity. It's not too hard to get a CPA and become an accountant, and there are a lot of bad accountants/accountants that just do grunt work out there. IB is more selective and requires a certain pedigree, and the results of the work (though not really the work itself) are more impressive. Then there's actuarial, a profession so selective that there are so few actuaries and nobody knows what they are (well, the profession doesn't require large supply anyways). Then there's prestige based on ethics too, and only doctors meet both of these criteria.

 
DedicatedApathist:
toiysam:
i dont work in the states, but it is more than what any of my classmates makes... headhunters call every week... I took the job because of the money and the skills you gain are really good. in the States, if you have a good training you make comfortably 200k.

If you don't mind me asking, are you FSA (and how many years did it take you to get this)? How many years of experience, and where do you work (large/small city? large life insurance company or consulting? I'm guessing the former for both)? Do you have any other qualifications (CFA, etc.) or a graduate degree?

I'm at a finance target and double majoring in finance/math (3.9 freshman year), so I was planning on doing the actuarial exams in college (probably 3-4 prelims) while shooting for BB S&T junior summer. I'm a rising soph, and had an actuarial internship (life) this summer. From my research I concluded that even if I got my FSA within 3-5 years after graduation and work in NY for a large life insurance company, it'd still take around 10 years to hit 200k (not that being 30 years old making 200k for 50 hours/week is a bad thing...). Does this sound about right? If a higher salary is commonly achieved more quickly, then I might just skip S&T altogether since actuarial is more stable. Is it possible? (at a large life company - I'm guessing consulting would be possible if you had the client base)

toiysam:
Well... I see them as numbers, it would be insane not to . You are right in everything you said. Seriously though, what is the image of Life Actuarials... is it like accountants or do people at least respect them?

Anyone who knows what an actuary actually is and does would respect them, but generally only people in the insurance industry know. They're the kings of the insurance industry. The general population probably has no idea what they do or that the profession exists. People in finance might know what they do, but likely don't realize the difficulty/mathematical aptitude required to obtain an FSA/FCAS (you need to pass 10 math-intensive exams, most held only once a year, all way harder than CFA exams, with 60% fail rates). There are just so few actuaries in general and the academic bar is pretty high (unlike the millions of accountants everywhere).

Actuarial science/math is very similar to financial math and trading/risk management. Discounting future cash premiums to value policies, managing a reserve fund to ensure solvency when paying out claims, hedging downside risk through reinsurance, analyzing trends through technical indicators, etc.

surferdude867:
I thought the term was casualty actuary? I know a few actuary's and they are strange people... Very smart, but VERY strange. That would be my take on it.

And why does everyone hate accountants? All of the accountants I've met seem like decent people.

There are life actuaries and there are casualty actuaries, two different actuarial societies. SOA covers life/health/pensions/investments, CAS covers property/casualty/auto/etc. Anyone who would willingly pick a job where you have to pass ~10 math based exams to earn a professional qualification is likely to be very strange socially. You spend much of your twenties studying for math exams (though you get pay raises for every one you pass!)

Prestige is related to selectivity. It's not too hard to get a CPA and become an accountant, and there are a lot of bad accountants/accountants that just do grunt work out there. IB is more selective and requires a certain pedigree, and the results of the work (though not really the work itself) are more impressive. Then there's actuarial, a profession so selective that there are so few actuaries and nobody knows what they are (well, the profession doesn't require large supply anyways). Then there's prestige based on ethics too, and only doctors meet both of these criteria.

No I dont have the FSA, I hope to get the ASA before heading to bschool. I am really worried because I dont hear of actuaries going to Harvard or Chicago , if anyone knows about actuaries successfully getting admissions into top bschools, please let me know.

I dont aspire to work in this after bschool. I believe it is a great job early in your career, but the work is so complicated that I do want to have a life eventually (I would rather work 100 hours doing deals than 50 hours calculating Risk Based Capital). I work at a Global swiss insurer in Latin AMerica, we are the strongest in my country and bigger in BOP than all the other regional offices in LatAM. In my country no one has the FSA, just one got the ASA in 1980. There are no Asian in here so it is really hard to find actuaries. The two guys in before me quit after 4 hours into the job (not exaggerating, true story, they even had a bet about how many hours i would stay in the job). Everyone in the team is really bright, mostly engineers or mathematicians. I studied like Business Engineering, but graduated first of my class and worked as a quant for 6 months before joining the team. If you want a 200k+, are really intelligent and wanna leave work at 9 pm then I encourage you to pursue this career. It is stressful, so many things can go wrong when you do the math in here that you might spend hours just trying to figure out where the hell is that delta.... You gotta learn Prophet or other modelling software which is nerve wrecking as well...

if you work int he states or the UK, they are not understaffed like in here, so you really do get to specialize in something which is easier, in here i mostly work on product development and research but when it comes reporting time, i work on reporting as well (which is the stressful part).

 

You're already making 200k with what seems like under 3 years of experience, and no ASA (essentially entry-level)? That doesn't seem right.

Actuaries usually don't go to bschool because they usually stick with the profession, which just requires passing exams. As for whether actuaries that want to change careers can get in, I'm not too sure, but I hear that there are jobs for FSA+CFA focused on investment-related analysis so it might be better for you to continue with the FSA and do the CFA concurrently. Do you have any specific job you want to switch into? Anything finance, IBD, S&T, AM? You mentioned you'd rather do double the hours of deals, so I'm guessing IBD, but doing deals isn't as fun as it's hyped up to be. I'd rather crunch numbers than work on pitchbooks and rip through financial statements.

I would expect the workload to get lighter as you get promoted to management, where more of your duties are clerical/managerial in nature. Again moreso in the US due to adequate supply.

How did you find your quant job compared to actuarial? I am considering quant as well.

 
DedicatedApathist:
You're already making 200k with what seems like under 3 years of experience, and no ASA (essentially entry-level)? That doesn't seem right.

Actuaries usually don't go to bschool because they usually stick with the profession, which just requires passing exams. As for whether actuaries that want to change careers can get in, I'm not too sure, but I hear that there are jobs for FSA+CFA focused on investment-related analysis so it might be better for you to continue with the FSA and do the CFA concurrently. Do you have any specific job you want to switch into? Anything finance, IBD, S&T, AM? You mentioned you'd rather do double the hours of deals, so I'm guessing IBD, but doing deals isn't as fun as it's hyped up to be. I'd rather crunch numbers than work on pitchbooks and rip through financial statements.

I would expect the workload to get lighter as you get promoted to management, where more of your duties are clerical/managerial in nature. Again moreso in the US due to adequate supply.

How did you find your quant job compared to actuarial? I am considering quant as well.

sorry if i wasnt clear, i dont make 200k, i said eventually you make that after some years.

well, i was in Index quant for a top bank, the quant work i was doing, was like 20% fun adn the rest was managing problems, one BPS would mean millions of dollars, so a little mistake in the system and the indices would go insane, attention to details reached new levels in there (i did really well there, was the golden boy hahah) i didnt see myself doing that in the long run and the experience wasnt Bschool, so i took a risk and changed jobs, and in here they paid me 50% more.

i want to work in IB so that eventually one day i move into PE, but i do realize that it might be easier if i do somethinn in capital markets, maybe Trading.

i think that my background might even help me when it comes time for bschool because i would be "unique" so i would add diversity to the class (wishful thinking)

and no, in this line of work, the more responsabilities, the more hours you work, at least in my team.

 

Shouldn't you be making more as a quant in a bank than an entry-level actuary? Strange.

Same as actuary no? 20% fun, 80% finding out why Prophet is giving you a crazy valuation. Same as IBD, 20% fun, 80% pitch books/valuation grunt work. Same as PE, 20% actually working on a deal, 80% sifting through the thousands of investments you could do but waiting for the right one because you have limited capital. I think you're overestimating how fun jobs can be in general and should stick with one. Work is never fun, just be glad you're making money and not doing boring+stressful physical labor or something. Just enjoy life.

As long as you can explain to a bschool why you're doing what you're doing and how the bschool can help you, it should be fine. But going from quant finance to the insurance industry (in a quant field) then wanting to go back to bschool to switch back into finance but in a qualitative and less quant field just makes no sense.

I meant less quantitative responsibilities, since that's what you were complaining about. Managerial level you just make sure your analysts are working, but you work "more" since you have to be there the whole time checking over analyst work.

 
DedicatedApathist:
Shouldn't you be making more as a quant in a bank than an entry-level actuary? Strange.

.

i am not in new york... i am in latin america..

well, i took a detour from finance to gain better skills (which i have)

the CLA doesnt just manage my team, she works her ass off, the stress she is in giving explanations to HQ and making sure that EVERYTHING in the company is working fine and that we stay profitable is insane, but it might be because we are understaffed, we are 5 in here and we do the same work the 25 actuaries in the states do (they even mentioned that in the Global conference for country CEOs)

 

I'm sorry. This is an irrelevant question, but I feel that the knowledge base on these forums provides for a good place to pose my question.

I am thinking about going into the field of actuarial science. One of the big reasons that I'm not super enthusiastic about it is the fact that I am going to a top12 school that I suppose some people would consider a target school.

Is it a waste, in a way to go into actuarial science? I could literally have paid 1/8 of the tuition, gone to a top state school and essentially done the same thing with my life (is what I assume). Does going to a target school in any way help me to move "up the ladder" faster at all? I'm assuming pretty much no since actuarial salaries are so strictly determined by exams passed. The only advantage I can possibly see is that I think that having a "nice" degree will get me better looks in getting a job.

 

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