The Actuary
"Actuaries are creative problem solvers, capable of projecting the future based on the past."
A simple answer to the question "What is an actuary" could be: someone who has a degree in actuarial sciences.
Actuaries combine mathematical skills with a profound business knowledge to assess or develop financial models and bring more transparency and certainty into an uncertain world.
The actuarial profession has its roots in the 18th century, when the first mortality tables were published by scientist as Antoine Deparcieux (1746), Pehr Wilhelm Wargentin (1749), Johann Peter Süssmich (1761) and Daniel Bernoulli (1763). Their first research was around life expectancy and how certain measures - such as vaccination against smallpocks - impacted that life expectancy.
Today, actuarial sciences are strongly embedded into the financial landscape.
We could already distinguish these different types of actuarial activity:
- Pricing insurance products
- Adequate reserving of product lines
- Actuarial function holders at Insurers and Pension Institutions
- Data analytics,
- ...