Monday, March 10, 2008

What do Actuaries do?

a) Actuaries Make Financial Sense of the Future: Actuaries are experts in assessing the financial impact of tomorrow's uncertain events. They enable financial decisions to be made with more confidence by:· Analyzing the past· Modelling the future· Assessing the risks involved, and· Communicating what the results mean in financial terms.

b) Actuaries Enable More Informed Decisions:
Actuaries add value by enabling businesses and individuals to make better-informed decisions, with a clearer view of the likely range of financial outcomes from different future events.

The actuary's skills in analysis and modelling of problems in finance, risk management and product design are used extensively in the areas of insurance, pensions, investment and more recently in wider fields such as project management, banking and health care. Within these industries, actuaries perform a wide variety of roles such as design and pricing of product, financial management and corporate planning. Actuaries are invariably involved in the overall management of insurance companies and pension, gratuity and other employee benefit funds schemes; they have statutory roles in insurance and employee benefit valuations to some extent in social insurance schemes sponsored by government.
Actuarial skills are valuable for any business managing long-term financial projects both in the public and private sectors.
Actuaries apply professional rigour combined with a commercial approach to the decision -making process.

c) Actuaries Balance the Interests of All
Actuaries balance their role in business management with responsibility for safeguarding the financial interests of the public. The duty of Actuaries to consider the public interest is illustrated by their legal responsibility for protecting the benefits promised by insurance companies and pension schemes. The profession's code of conduct demands the highest standards of personal integrity from its members.