Can anyone who has previously sat SP9 recommend a study plan? What should I prioritize and when should I start if I'm sitting in September?

Thanks

What is the main different between working in the pricing team of a reinsurance broker company compared to the pricing team of a normal reinsurance company ? Thanks!

Has anyone moved to Canada while taking IFOA exams? I will hopefully qualify as an associate with the IFOA this summer (pending CP1 result) and am thinking of moving to Toronto for a year but would still like to finish out qualification to fellow. Has anyone done anything similar and be willing to provide some insight?

Hello everyone. It has been over a year since I made post about I have to resit for my postgrad and now I've successfully graduated except....I don't have all the exemptions, and thus have to take some IFoA exams myself. Right now I'm looking to take CP1 and SP8 this Sep and my knowledge is still rather fresh. But when I try the questions and see the reports I found that the answers weren't structured in ways that I expected. Back in uni my approach was to use bullet points for each argument based on the command words (to precisely allocate marks, of course). But on the examiner reports I can see that some "explain" questions have very compacted answers so I wonder whether bullet points are still applicable in the IFoA papers?

Background:

22 M, India.

92.8% A Level (Accounting/Business Studies/Economics/Physical Education/English)

1:1 BSc Applied Accounting (Honours) (from a UK Uni but a distance program)

Bachelors of Commerce from state university in India

ACCA (similar to ACA/ICAEW/ICAS) 9 out of 13 exams passed, Including a National Rank 2 and World Rank 9 in one the exams.

2 Month Internship in Tax/Accounting/Auditing at a Local Chartered Accountant

Got Admission into Heriot Watt's MSc Actuarial Science and Management 2 year course, which would ideally give me 11 exemptions, I will be starting off with the course this September.

The MSc decision is a sunk cost, and cannot be changed so I would appreciate if tips like don't do the masters and clear exams while working, could be avoided.

As a side note the main reason of the masters is relocation to UK.

I would like advice about things that I should do before my masters and during my masters to improve my employability(I want to work in core actuarial fields and not accounting).

1. One thing that I am already aware about is that I have not really studied math(and I have no idea how I got the admission), and I need to work on it, I am currently doing the BPP's Pure Math and Stat for Actuarial Sciences Module and I would appreciate if anyone could tell me about additional resources.
2. What other skills/subjects/topics should I work on?
3. I am currently aiming for reserving as a career I feel there is some overlap with accounting, although I could be wrong and really don't know much about reserving.
4. Assuming I get all 11 exemptions + BT + pretty much zero work ex, relatively speaking how tough would it be to find jobs in London and what kind of salaries would I be looking at.
5. Anything else that you feel I should pay attention to or anything that I should do before my masters starts, or during my masters?

Hi, I am an actuarial analyst work in an ALM team for a global insurer in Hong Kong with 2 years experiences. I am currently looking for job opportunities in UK due to personal reasons. I would love to ask for some critique upon my current resume and any other suggestions from uk actuarial market.

Many thanks!

Thanks!

Hello Actuaries or aspiring actuaries, I have recently graduated with a degree in actuarial science here in Kenya. I would like to continue with this journey and IFoA seems to offer the best path towards being an Actuary. However, I'm not farmiliar with this path and I would like to reach out to anyone who would like to walk down this path with me. I have a couple of questions and I'd be grateful if someone helped me solve this.

Which should I prioritise?

I'm only in the office once per week and my hours are chill. My thought is to stay with the job until I've cleared exams? Reason I ask is because rn I'm in reserving and I'd like to eventually try other areas of GI actuarial (pricing and capital etc). And also for a pay bump

Hi , hoping april exams went well for everyone. I sat for sp5, and wanted to plan a little for what comes next Exams left are SP6 , CM2 and SA7. I wanted to know is it advisable to give sa7 prior to sp6. Owing to similarities between sp6 and cm2, wanted to take them up together in april’25 sitting. Also, Any suggestions and tips regarding sa7 are highly appreciated. Study Material or other resources that may be beneficial. Thank you:)

Hi All,

Is there some online course or university course through which we can get CM2 exemption from IFOA?

​

To anyone in my position with finals coming up and still no graduate scheme.

DO NOT SEARCH FOR JOBS WHILE STUDYING FOR FINALS.

As someone that currently works 2 jobs while also studying for my degree, I thought I could handle it but now I have just wasted a lot of time, which may eat into my grades.

I had one assessment centre the day my dissertation along with two assignments was due. This lead to me sacrificing a few crucial days to prepare for the assessment centre - just to get rejected over a written task.

I have also had another assessment this past week and the stress is just not worth it. I spent my entire weekend preparing for it and then lost an entire day doing it.

I feel like the stress I am under is very apparent at these assessment centres as all I think about during them are my exams and the time I am losing.

Turns out there is a limit to how much one can juggle.

Hi, I am a 19 year old looking to become an actuary. I am looking for advice on the best steps forward. For context, I am working at a big 4 and work with data everyday cleansing it and building analysers, I’m about to switch teams and go on a rota which will be great experience as I’ll go through many teams and become more well rounded. It’s a degree apprenticeship which will give me a degree in tech solutions which does worry me a bit as tech solutions doesn’t have lots to do with actuary as far as I know (not very much). I’m hoping that it will sort of be like a degrees a degree and they’ll care more about the 3 years of work experience I’ll have by then working with data everyday and finance which hopefully gives me an edge over people who went to uni and studied maths. I am quite good at maths getting an A at A Level an A in Further Maths AS and a c in Further Maths (AS is year one, the other is both years) however I am of course worried about maybe the C and also the degree being in tech solutions even though my job is actually in data. I plan to study during my apprenticeship and hopefully pass the 2 base exams to negate this (I believe they are statistics and probability?) I am getting quite good at speaking professionally and doing interviews as I took tons to get my apprenticeship. Maybe having a big 4 on my CV is impressive? I plan on either joining an actuary scheme at the big 4 I work at once I finish my degree, or going to another big 4 or bank maybe if they pay more. Would appreciate any advice and tips, thanks for reading. It may be easier to join some kind of actuary scheme at the big 4 I already work at as I’ve worked there 3 years already so surely they’ll like that?

TLDR: level 6 apprenticeship at a big 4 for 3 years and will get a degree in tech solutions. Work with data every day at job and will be joining new teams and rotating for year 2 now. Am worried actuary opportunities won’t want me over someone fresh out of university with a maths degree or masters and that my degree isn’t good enough / fitting. Plan on passing 2 base actuary exams during 3 year apprenticeship to negate my worries (degree isn’t that relevant and i don’t have amazing maths background other than maths and further maths at a level)

I am attempting to apply for an exemption for CB2. I have to do this via Route D as I did mot study an accredited course (I studied maths).

I sat an econ paper that the actuarial science students also sit and gives them the CB2 exemption hence why I am applying.

I’m having difficulty with the course mapping form that needs to be filled in as all I have is a 150 page course notes for micro and just the lecture slides (over 500 slides) for macro.

Finding it difficult / weird to map the cb2 course points to a set of pages in my notes and wondering if anyone has experience with this?

Also it states that I need a professional (assuming my manager who is qualified would work) to sign all the documents confirming they are original.

If anyone has experience going through this route D pls comment and lmk what works ty

I'm planning to take CP1 in September (would be my last paper if I pass my SA and CP3 from April). I read through some posts here on CP1 studying advice and came up with a study plan. Would like to get feedback if the plan is realistic and if any changes I should make?

CP1 Study plan in order:

1. CMP Reading (3 hour average per Chapter x 38 Chapters): 114 study hours
2. Assignment X [(3 hours trial + 3 hours going through solutions) x 5 sets]: 30 study hours
3. 10 PYPs + 1 Mock [(6.5 hours trial for PP1 & PP2 + 8 hours going through solution) x 11]: 160 hours

Total: 304 hours

This is less than 400 hours recommended by IFOA, did I miss anything? Do you really need to study 400 hours before you can pass this paper?

Another question is: given that I already studied SP7, SP8 and SA3 (all the GI papers), should I just skip all the chapters relating to GI and overlapped contents like Regulation and External Markets?

Thanks a lot in advance.

.

I am currently in my first year of uni doing a maths degree and I plan on taking CS1 next April, CM1 after that. However, I’ve been wondering if it’s realistic at all that I’ll find an entry level role (or a summer intership) since I am not attending university in the UK?

I won’t require any visa sponsorship, but will not being able to provide A levels results and having a less well-known foreign university on my CV be a significant disadvantage? Would pursuing a Master's in the UK be worth it to better my chances, given the very high costs?

How competitive is the entry level market ,specifically in London?

Any advice on the best way to spend the next 2 years as to make myself a better candidate is greatly appreciated.

Hi all,

I wanted to ask for opinions on this matter.

I've been making really good progress on my exams, provided my last sitting went well, I hope to be qualified within 2-3 sittings.

My day job however is a different matter. I genuinely try my hardest during 9-5, but have issues such as: My manager will teach me something. I'll write it down, I'll even know where it is, but then when it comes up in a discussion later I won't remember it or will have to faff about trying to find it. I can feel my manager’s disappointment knowing I haven’t actioned upon it or taken it into consideration in what I’m talking about, despite discussing the same week.

A large part of this is because I'm genuinely drained from my commute, I go to a local office with some of my team and a further office where my manager is. When I go to my manager’s office, I’m genuinely dead tired by the time I arrive - but that means the only days my manager sees me he’ll likely think I am an idiot or purposely being obtuse/lazy in my job because I am barely awake. He knows I’ve done well on my exams, even looked at my educational history when I joined and knows I did pretty well. This probably makes them think even more that I am somehow being an idiot/lazy in my job, because how can such a person have such low standards.

My manager keeps trying to give me more work (very busy team) and I try my best to do it, but if I get stuck then they aren’t really able to help - they’re snowed under (hence offloading to me), will expect me to have a proper go of things with little check in time and then when they review close to deadline date they’ll spot severe oversights - sometimes I realise I should have spotted that but sometimes I probably wouldn’t, and then it’s extremely time pressured. This reflects really poorly on me, having done the work to what I believe is a good standard, then realising I’ve messed up on a key assumption and having to redo the whole piece of work at the last minute. A lot of these oversights are due to the volume of the work (which really is normal for the team) which I have to get through at a fast pace or the time pressure.

I don’t want a victim/sympathy mentality - I’ve been in this role a fair while and I should be expected to be able to do things without being hand held. If I am a qualified actuary in a year - people will send things my way and will expect a certain standard without having to peer review, and I won’t have a higher up with which I can ask how to do things.

I guess my concern is that I am just not that great at my job and keep seeming like an idiot. I think once I qualify I’ll certainly have more mental capacity for my job, given I won’t be studying and I know that it does severely reduce my mental bandwidth during my 9-5 given I study before work and use my brain's "peak hours" for studying. But regardless I just feel hopeless at how much I underperform despite my efforts. My biggest concern of all is that I get fired for this. I don't know how common it is to get fired in this role. I don't want to get doxxed but I'm not in a London Market/Lloyd's role.

For anyone who was aware of the out of syllabus question 4 in this sittings CS2A paper, I have an update.

I emailed them basically saying that whilst some aspects of the question could be deemed as applied logic (essentially to workout which side of the equation to put your values when making the initial surplus equality), some other aspects were out of syllabus (I.e.how to apply premium loading) and that it unfairly disadvantaged those of us who hadn't taken CM2 yet.

I didn't ask them to discount the whole question, just to apply some lenient marking to the marks allocated to the premium loading part, where any approach to how to handle it is given full marks, even if that approach is wrong according to CM2 standards.

I've had a response basically saying that they've passed the feedback onto the examination team who will review it and consider if any mitigating actions are required, but we won't find out until after results are published in the examiner's report.

At that point it will be too late to do anything because our results will already be set in stone. So I guess there's not much to be done other than wait and hope 🙃

Heads up that IFoA have put the usual exam survey in the student newsletter sent now.

Lets use our chance to feedback and we might hope for a smoother sitting in September

Does anyone have any recommendations for learning SQL and Python, perhaps any courses you've taken or courses designed for actuaries? I have a little experience with Python, but none with SQL and I'm looking to familiarise myself with them before starting an internship over the summer. Thanks!

Welcome to the Actuarial Salary survey! It's been a little longer than planned since the last one, but we thought we'd wait until the exam period was over before posting.

As usual, please complete the below to share your salary information

1. Type of Role: [Life/Pension/GI] & [Pricing/Reserving/Capital] & [Industry/Consultancy]
2. Exams passed: [0-13, Qualified]
3. Years of experience: (include # Post Qualified years separately, if qualified)
4. Typical hours worked per week:
5. Base salary: (Specify currency)
6. Employer pension Contribution:
7. Bonus: (% or £ amount)
8. Days required in office and Location: (0-5) (City)
9. Other benefits of note: [Medical insurance, Car allowance etc.]

As usual, to encourage everyone to participate, if you're worried about being doxxed etc. then please PM me (in chat rather than mail) your response and I can post it on your behalf. I'm happy to do this for everyone apart from brand new accounts for whom it's difficult to verify if you're providing actual data or just lying.

Hey Guys,

If you have experience hiring candidates, I would like to seek your thoughts on candidate selection.

What do you think a candidate wanting to switch from life insurance to P&C.

1. Clear a GI exam, SP7 or SP8.
2. Explain willingness to make the switch on CV.
3. Potentially get data science related certificate.

Thanks for your inputs.

I just notice that I copied the link version of the excel table to the word file as it gives a reminder when I open the word file after exam.

Are there any other people who had this issue before? Will it affect the exam results?

Thoughts anyone ?

What did everyone think?

How did everyone find it?

Thought it was a pretty standard CB1 paper, thankfully made easier by the absolute gift of Q19. Hoping the pass mark stays around the same.

Thoughts? Anyone else have exam download issues? That was more stress that I need on a Monday morning.

How much effort is this for the September sitting? I have notes already from friends. Maybe TMI but my depression has come back badly so I was thinking of just studying for these exams instead of having a summer

Hi all,

I’m a second year uni student, and unfortunately last year I didn’t manage to secure my CB2 exemption (by about 2-3 marks 🥲). I’m planning on taking it in September, and this would be my first time taking an IFoA exam and wanted to ask if anyone had any advice for someone in my position.

Also, I’ve seen that the new system for CB1 and CB2 was meant to roll out for April’s exam period, but that was delayed. Do you guys think it will roll out for September?

Many thanks in advance 🙏