Ask an Actuary

"Ask an Actuary" features an actuary that is asked to describe the path that led him/her to an actuarial career. For this installment, our featured actuary is Edward M. Kuss, Manager - Corporate Actuarial at Progressive Corporation in Ohio.

Q: When did you decide you wanted to be an actuary?

A: I decided I wanted to be an actuary after spending about two years as a Commercial Auto Underwriter at Progressive.

Q: What influenced this decision?

A: After about my first five years of teaching, the satisfaction started decreasing and I decided after 20 years to get out. I don't know if it was more that the students changed or I was burned out, but it was probably a combination of the two.

I was unsuccessful when I first started looking for a job outside education and decided to take some actuarial exams so I would have something on my resume that was not related to education. I took Exams 3b and 141 (Interest Theory) in November, 1989 and Exams 1 and 2 the following February.

In December, 1989 (so it was between my two exam sittings), I got a job as a Commercial Auto Underwriter at Progressive, which I did for about two years. I then transferred to a pricing analyst position and started taking actuarial exams again.

So what influenced my decision originally was my desire to get something on my resume other than education. I decided to transfer to a pricing position because it gave me the opportunity to be use my math and analytical skills to help make decisions that impacted Progressive's success.

Q: Where did you go to college, and what is your educational background?

A: I received a BA from Dartmouth College and an MS from the University of Oregon. Both were in pure Mathematics and neither school had any kind of actuarial program.

Q: What did you do before you were an actuary?

A: For 20 years, I taught junior and senior high school math ranging from Pre-Algebra through Advanced Placement Calculus. I taught in independent schools in Michigan, Connecticut, Colorado, and Ohio.

Q: What classes did you take in college that helped prepare you for the career? What class was most helpful?

A: I took a number of Calculus, Probability, and Statistics courses. My classes were all pretty theoretical so there were no classes that directly tied to any actuarial exams. Actually, all my teaching is what best prepared me for Exam 1, and the study habits I picked up in grad school were what helped me most in subsequent exams.

Q: What classes outside of math and statistics (such as communications) were helpful?

A: Probably the introductory Economics course I took had the most direct link to exams. I don't think Dartmouth offered Finance courses but I wish I had some exposure as an undergrad. Dartmouth is a liberal arts school and I firmly believe that a broad base in English, the hard sciences, social sciences, and fine arts made me a better business person and actuary.

Q: Tell me about your first job in the profession. Where did you work? How did you get the job? What did you do?

A: My first actuarial position was in Progressive's ill-fated long-haul trucking division. My main two responsibilities were reserving and pricing for our Truckload and our Owner-Operator businesses. I got the job because of my fabulous skill set, although the fact that I was the only internal applicant who had passed exams probably helped also.

Q: When did you take your first exam? How long did it take you to get through the process?

A: I was 42 when I took my first exam in 1989. I earned my Associateship in 1994 and my Fellowship in 1997, so it took me 8 years, although I took 2 years off while I earned my CPCU.

Q: What advice would you give to people preparing to take the exams?

A: In some respects, I was fortunate to start taking exams as late as I did. If I had been in my 20s, I might have struggled with dedicating time to studying as much as I see young candidates struggling today; it is difficult to take time away from fun social activities like playing sports and going out. By the time I started taking exams, all my kids were teenagers and they did not need my time as much as infants do; I am always extremely impressed when someone with young children is passing exams.

Possibly the most important thing is to have a supportive family. I might not have gotten as far with exams as I did if my wife was not actively encouraging me.

I also suggest that a candidate talk to a successful exam-taker to learn how he/she did it. I am concerned that too many candidates are studying from old exams and study guides first and looking at the exam syllabus, which I feel is backward.

Q: What is a typical day like as an actuary?

A: There is no such thing as a typical day. I currently manage three reserving analysts and we spend most of our time doing reserve analyses and projects like catastrophe modeling, loss modeling for some of our low frequency/high severity lines, and support our Corporate Actuary as he writes Actuarial Opinions and Reports.

Q: How long have you been in the profession?

A: I have been in insurance for 15 years and the actuarial profession for 13.

Q: What advice would you give to someone starting out in the profession?

A: Decide how committed you are to the exam process. I interview a lot of new college grads who plan to earn Fellowship, but I frequently wonder if they are willing to make the sacrifices on a day-to-day basis. If they are, and they do earn Fellowship, I believe that this is the number 1 or number 2 profession, as so many of the job surveys have indicated. It's still a great profession if a person doesn't earn his Fellowship, but the opportunities (in terms of both jobs and finances) are not as great.