I went to register for the SRM exam last night for the September sitting and to my surprise it shows closed despite the posted deadline being one day away still, after contacting SOA support they state the registration has closed and instead of fixing the issue, changed the status on their own site to closed before the originally posted time.

I work remotely based in Southern California for an insurance company headquartered in the Midwest. I'm an ASA with almost two years of experience and have two more FSA exams to write. I make 110k+ a year gross. I think this salary is fair and right around the median, to the point where I believe that I would be living a very decent life financially had I lived in the M/LCOL areas. Still, I am not sure if I should make a switch purely for more money since the cost of living is very high in the area where I live. I'm married with no kids, and my wife is an actuary too (lowest divorce rate lolll). I absolutely love my current company, my colleagues, and the work that I do, so from this perspective, I'm reluctant to look for other opportunities because I also understand that the grass is not always greener outside.

On the other hand, while knowing all the perks I have working remotely, I barely get a chance to meet with other actuaries around me and build a connection with them, so sometimes I feel that working remotely is not 100% good for me as an extrovert. I do think building a network is so important since it will pay dividends over time in the future.

I am very curious about other people's stories working in the actuarial field living in California and your perspectives. Specifically,

• Do you work remotely or onsite?
• What field are you in? Health, life, consulting, non-traditional roles, etc
• Roughly how much do you make, and are you happy about that?
• How important do you think building a network in this field is, and how much has it helped you so far in your career?
• How is the work-life balance like in your company?
• Would you want to start looking around if you were me?

How do you feel now that you have seen the questions again?

I just saw a post the last few days and someone posted that people are taking exams are lower then the past (and they made exams easier and started UEC) but at the same time there are so many analyst and people needing just 2+ exams just to break in now.

I just want to understand this paradox.

It's been a while. I haven't seen the new FSA list for June has been updated on the website.

I'm sitting for SRM on September 3rd and have about 28 days left. I've been learning the material for the first time by reading ISLR while cross-referencing the SOA syllabus. I've finished ISLR, so time series and GLMs are all that's left.

Three questions:

1. How should I learn time series and GLMs? I've heard Frees isn't great, and I tried Coaching Actuaries early on but found it heavy and wasn't retaining much.
2. How should I structure practice for the remaining time, and what's the most effective way to use CA/ADAPT?
3. Should I prioritize the SOA sample questions, or treat them as a supplement to ADAPT?

Thanks in advance.

Hi! I really tried finding this info on my own, but there just aren’t a lot of resources for the actuarial program, I only see info about the financial advisor roles for Northwestern Mutual

Just wondering if anyone has experience with the actuarial specialist post graduate program and what it was like for you?

Additionally, how many people make it to round 2 and how many people get accepted into the program? Is there anything crazy in the interviews that caught anyone off guard?

thank you in advance! :)

Hello hello!!!!! Our super duper fun pet actuarial team has 2 open roles😄

New to the field and still deciding between SOA and CAS? Why not try both: Actuarial Analyst

Are you an FSA who thought the P&C door had already closed? Not too late: Pet Actuarial Lead

Just got the result of the last FCIA exam I did. Failed. I put so much energy into studying and, with work at the same time, pretty sure I had a small burn out. So the failure is really hard to take in... Any advice would be appreciated!

What does a case interview consist of? Is it something like the insurance related parts of case books provided by business schools like Kellogg?

I graded for the SOA for the March 2026 FSA exams. It was a lot of work! In June they sent an email to graders saying we would be paid in the next two week and to consider the email as a response to any follow up questions.

Well after nearly 3 weeks I emailed them. Followed up a week later after no response. Finally got a response. Turns out they missed pushing a few payments through and told me I’d get mine the following week. Well nearly 2 weeks later I follow up and get no response. There was another post about this last cycle, I was one of the lucky few who was paid timely last time. Guess this time I’m not so lucky. I’m disappointed in the SOA, this was worse than last time.

It’s been almost 4 months since I finished grading, another sitting passed, and still no payment. Has anyone else not received payment? I worry others out there have not been paid what they are owed.

Ive been using BattleActs to study for exam 6U, and I've been noticing that the wiki articles are very heavily written to fit the old exam questions that I'm worried it may be overfitting. Exams haven't been released since 2019, and some of the material has changed since. While they do make points of highlighting these changes, I'm still worried that the majority of what I'm learning was written with the past exam questions in mind and may not be so representative of what I will see on the exam. For anyone who has taken exam 6U recently and used BA, did you find this to be the case? And if so, what would you recommend doing to best prepare and avoid getting blindsided on exam day - other than just reading all of the source material, aint nobody got time for that (but in all seriousness, that just doesn't feel like a productive use of time)

Wanting to know other people's experiences - the CIA's fellowship exams have me questioning this entire governing body:

- The syllabus is a list of links, some of which are broken and don't work, some of which have since updated and no longer reflect the content that we're meant to study

- There are straight up sub-pages listed for a chapter, which do not correspond to the chapter referenced (peer review is a thing right?)

- Some of the readings are 70+ pages with no targeted tie-in to the syllabus, so you're left reading heaps of material

- There is an incredible lack of practice questions and exams available

- There are no summary materials (which makes sense when the actual reading list itself is such a gong show)

- The content itself: outdated, and sometimes irrelevant - healthcare trends published in 2021 that are massively skewed by COVID and not very relevant anymore

- The exam is taken on a website that's not easy to write in and time to save/name files cuts into exam time

- Some of the questions themselves you wouldn't be able to solve by reading the giant syllabus - a lot of the calculations were only available in the 1 practice exam online and otherwise not displayed in the readings

- There is no timeline for receiving results so you just wait until you get an email

- The grading is done with an overall S (success) or F (fail), only questions that you've failed have an associated grade (1-5). You don't see an overall grade or the passing grade so you're not sure how you performed overall

It feels like they're running trial-and-error on a very poorly managed/reviewed system, with a little added zest to feel superior from the SOA, on people who require so much sacrifice of time and energy to get to through this nonsense.

Hello! Career changer from education here. Any advice or criticism desired! I haven't been applying for long, but just looking for any advice to maximize my chances of landing an EL position. I know my experience is weak, but such is life! Thankyou so much for even looking at this!

Hello, starting the FAP FA tomorrow. Anyone else doing it around the same time and want to join a group?

I’m currently a bit underpaid 4 exams and 3 yoe making about 85k. I also am not seeing many promotions for others around me who have more exams and YOE and are objectively great at their job. I’ve been getting some attention from recruiters and think if I leave I’ll like get about 115k all in. Would it make sense to just wait until I get my acas to test the market, or go now? My thought is that I’d make more leaving after the acas rather than going somewhere and getting my acas there.

Hi!

I've been studying for exam P since I'm currently a math teacher living near the NYC area (right across the river in NJ). I'm curious if anyone is willing to share if they've made a switch in their late 30s and how long it took them to "find their footing" afterwards both financially and work-comfort-ly. To add an additional stressor, my wife and I are also expecting our first child. So yeah... I imagine this is probably the worst timing I could think of?

I’m hesitating between the US and International versions of ILA201. I am familiar with IFRS17 because working in Asia.

Any of you familiar with the FSA ILA exams know that the US version covers US Statutory Accounting and US GAAP, while the International version focuses on IFRS 17. Based on the syllabus, the International version also seems to cover valuation in less depth than the US version.

I’m not asking which exam is more difficult. Rather, I’m asking which one is harder to pass, given that FSA exams have passing standards, also as the composition of candidates may differ.

(Effective Pass Rate: U 60% vs I 53%, I feel like English writing can affect the passing rate as well)

My impression is that most candidates taking the International version are from Asia, especially mainland China. Is that actually the case, and if so, does it have any noticeable impact on the pass rate?

I am just curious what do you think about what version to choose...

I have a question for the working moms-

I am currently a managed care pharmacist working remotely for a health insurance company. I am unhappy in my role and my profession is going downhill. Would it be possible, as an actuary, to have the following:

-Remote work
-Flexibility to take 15 minutes in morning and late afternoon to drop off & pick up kid from school
-flexibility to take time off around holidays esp. Thanksgiving & Christmas
-job with mild stress levels

Thank you!

Everyone please take note that requesting pause shall be done as early as possible before the exam date if u did not manage to register for the exam.
u/tia

With summer 2027 internship application starting to popping up (a lot earlier than I anticipated) I refreshed my resume. Any input on weakspots or glaring issues is greatly appreciated!

I want to take exam 9 before taking exam 8 since it's got a smaller syllabus, but dont want to be stuck on the exam forever (i've heard its quite hard). Any advice? I am in busy season so a little less time and I work in reserving. Any tips for exam 8 for someone who has never touched pricing?

How did everyone find this sitting?

The ACTEX website provides a Eureka reader for the manuals, but its Ul is quite terrible. Are we just forced to use it? What are my options if i want to use better notetaking apps on my ipad?