Torchora
Back to Home

Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Associate Actuary

💰 $75,000 - $140,000

InsuranceActuarialFinanceRisk ManagementAnalytics

🎯 Role Definition

The Associate Actuary is an early- to mid-career actuarial professional responsible for executing technical actuarial analyses that support pricing, reserving, capital management, and regulatory reporting. This role develops and validates actuarial models, performs experience studies and assumption-setting, prepares actuarial memos and regulatory filings, and communicates results to business partners and senior leadership. The Associate Actuary combines strong analytical skills, domain knowledge (P&C/Life/Health/Annuities depending on line), and practical experience with actuarial systems and programming to deliver accurate, timely insights that drive profitable underwriting, reserving adequacy, and financial reporting.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Actuarial Intern
  • Actuarial Analyst / Pricing Analyst
  • Risk Analyst or Financial Analyst with strong analytical/statistical background

Advancement To:

  • Senior Actuary / Senior Pricing Actuary
  • Actuarial Manager / Team Lead
  • Capital Management / ERM Specialist
  • Subject Matter Expert (Reserving, Pricing, Predictive Modeling)

Lateral Moves:

  • Data Scientist / Predictive Modeler
  • Underwriting Analytics Lead
  • Financial Reporting / IFRS 17 Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead the design, development and maintenance of actuarial pricing models and rate-making tools for assigned product lines, ensuring models are documented, validated, and fit for use in business decisions and regulatory filings.
  • Prepare and analyze loss development triangles, claim emergence patterns and reserve estimates; calculate case reserves and IBNR using deterministic and stochastic methods and document assumptions in actuarial memoranda.
  • Perform reserving analyses including monthly/quarterly/annual reserve run processes, prepare roll-forward schedules, reconcile reserve movement explanations, and deliver presentations to management and auditors.
  • Support financial reporting activities under GAAP, Statutory, and IFRS 17 frameworks: prepare actuarial components of the financial statements, reconcile actuarial outputs to ledger, and contribute to accounting entries and disclosures.
  • Execute experience studies (mortality, lapse, frequency, severity, trend), analyze credibility and segmentation, recommend assumption changes and quantify P&L and balance sheet impacts.
  • Build, calibrate and validate stochastic models for pricing, reserving and capital; run scenario and sensitivity analyses to support capital planning and risk management (economic capital and Solvency II / RBC).
  • Design and perform predictive modeling and machine learning projects for segmentation, claims severity/frequency, and retention using Python/R, ensuring reproducible analytics and deployment-ready code.
  • Prepare and submit regulatory filings, rate manual updates and actuarial certifications; respond to rating bureau requests and organize documentation for state/federal regulators.
  • Maintain and enhance core actuarial systems (Prophet, MoSes, GGY-AxIS, ResQ, TAS, AXIS), including running batch jobs, troubleshooting outputs and implementing model upgrades.
  • Lead and document actuarial model validations and independent reviews; coordinate with internal model validation teams and external consultants to ensure governance and model risk controls are met.
  • Quantify and document the impacts of business initiatives (new products, pricing changes, underwriting rules, reinsurance) on profitability, required reserves, capital and pricing.
  • Collaborate with underwriting, claims, finance and product teams to translate business questions into data and modeling solutions; provide actionable recommendations to improve pricing adequacy and loss ratios.
  • Support reinsurance structure analysis and pricing: model ceded recoveries, evaluate treaty attachment points, price facultative placements and quantify reinsurance program effectiveness.
  • Produce management reporting and dashboards (loss ratio drivers, claim trends, reserve adequacy metrics) and present clear visualizations and narrative for executive decision-making.
  • Participate in or coordinate actuarial inputs for M&A, portfolio transfers and due diligence, providing valuation analyses, reserve reviews and risk assessments.
  • Contribute to enterprise risk management (ERM) initiatives: identify actuarial risk exposures, quantify stress scenarios, and support risk appetite or mitigation strategy development.
  • Create, maintain and improve data pipelines for actuarial analysis: source, clean and transform policy, claims and exposure data; write and optimize SQL queries and ETL processes.
  • Automate recurring actuarial processes (pricing runs, reserve calculations, monthly reporting) using Excel VBA, Python scripts or workflow tools to improve accuracy and efficiency.
  • Draft clear actuarial memoranda, technical notes and executive summaries describing methodology, assumptions, sensitivities and business implications for both technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Support internal and external audits by preparing back-up schedules, validating model inputs/outputs and explaining methodologies and controls to auditors.
  • Mentor and review work of actuarial analysts and interns: provide feedback on technical work, review code and documentation, and help shape learning plans for exam progress.
  • Monitor industry trends, regulatory updates (IFRS 17, Solvency II, NAIC developments), and emerging analytics techniques, evaluating impacts and recommending timely changes to models and processes.
  • Participate in cross-functional projects to prototype new product features, pricing experiments or advanced analytics initiatives, contributing actuarial expertise and helping operationalize solutions.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Assist in internal training workshops on actuarial tools, modeling best practices and exam topic knowledge.
  • Provide backup support for month-end close or quarterly reporting activities as required.
  • Participate in vendor evaluations and help manage relationships with actuarial software providers and consultants.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Actuarial modeling and valuation (experience with Prophet, MoSes, GGY-AxIS, ResQ, AXIS or equivalent).
  • Reserving techniques: loss triangles, chain-ladder, Bornhuetter-Ferguson, stochastic reserving and bootstrapping.
  • Pricing and ratemaking: GLMs, credibility-weighted approaches, segmentation, rate filings and retrospective rating adjustments.
  • Financial reporting frameworks: practical knowledge of IFRS 17, GAAP and Statutory accounting impacts and disclosure requirements.
  • Predictive analytics and machine learning using Python (pandas, scikit-learn), R (tidyverse, mgcv), or SAS.
  • Strong SQL skills for data extraction, transformation and validation; experience with relational databases and ETL tools.
  • Excel modeling expertise including VBA automation, advanced formulas, pivot tables and scenario analysis.
  • Experience with actuarial governance: model validation, version control, documentation standards and audit readiness.
  • Stochastic modeling and capital analysis including Monte Carlo simulation, economic capital and Solvency II ORSA familiarity.
  • Reinsurance modeling and pricing, including treaty vs. facultative analysis and ceded recovery modeling.
  • Data visualization and reporting tools such as Power BI, Tableau, or business intelligence reporting platforms.
  • Familiarity with cloud/data platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP) and CI/CD for model deployment is a plus.
  • Experience with regulatory filings and communication with rating agencies or state regulators.

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional written and verbal communication: able to explain complex technical results to executives, underwriters and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Strong problem-solving and critical thinking: able to structure analyses to answer business questions and prioritize work.
  • Attention to detail and commitment to quality: produces reproducible, documented work and catches inconsistencies before release.
  • Time management and ability to manage multiple projects under tight deadlines.
  • Collaborative team player: works effectively across actuarial, underwriting, claims, finance and IT teams.
  • Leadership potential and mentorship: provides constructive feedback and grows junior team members.
  • Business acumen: links actuarial results to profitability, pricing strategy and enterprise objectives.
  • Adaptability and continuous learning mindset: keeps up with regulatory changes, exam progress and emerging analytics techniques.
  • Stakeholder management and influence: negotiates trade-offs and secures alignment on assumptions and action plans.
  • Ethical judgment and professional integrity in handling confidential data and regulatory commitments.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Actuarial Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Economics, Finance, Data Science or related quantitative field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree in Actuarial Science, Statistics, Data Science, Financial Mathematics or related discipline.
  • Professional actuarial credentials or progress toward credentialing (ASA, ACAS preferred; toward FSA/FCAS is advantageous).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Actuarial Science
  • Mathematics / Applied Mathematics
  • Statistics / Probability
  • Economics / Finance
  • Data Science / Computer Science

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 1 to 5 years of actuarial work experience (pricing, reserving, modeling, or analytics roles).

Preferred:

  • 3+ years of hands-on actuarial modeling, reserving and pricing experience in insurance or reinsurance.
  • Demonstrated exam progress (ASA/ACAS) or equivalent professional qualifications.
  • Experience with at least one actuarial modeling system (Prophet, AXIS, MoSes, GGY-AxIS) and modern analytics stack (Python/R, SQL, Power BI/Tableau).
Explore More Careers