What Is an Actuary, Actually?

“I analyze risk for a living. It’s my job to worry.” So said Ben Stiller’s character, Rueben Feffer, in the 2004 movie, “Along Came Polly.”

If you are like me, you get this question all the time when you tell people you are an actuary. Without going into a lot of detail, I usually answer this question by saying that actuaries typically work in insurance or pension, and that I’m a pension actuary: I tell clients how much they need to contribute to their retirement plan each year (and how much they can take out). Most people are satisfied with this answer. 

But what is an actuary, generally speaking? Is an actuary some type of math oracle, as one of my friends used to say?  And are there accurate portrayals of actuaries in media that we can point to?

In the most general sense, actuaries use data and probability to determine how much needs to be funded to cover the cost of some future event, where there is uncertainty involving the timing, duration, and/or amount of the future payment needed. We use data and calculations to make financial recommendations when risk is involved. According to the Society of Actuaries’ slogan, “Risk is opportunity.” Ironically, actuaries are often known for being reluctant to take risks. 

We are stereotyped for lacking personality, but if we had more personality, we might not be able to endure the studying required to pass the exams!  

Most of us took the majority of our exams while working full time in the actuarial field. Since individual exams have a recommended study time of 200 – 500 hours, for each exam this translates to a few months of studying, a few hours a day, several days a week, while consuming countless cups of coffee and having approximately zero social life. When I first started dating my husband, I was preparing to take EA-2B (now EA-2L). We had a lot of arguments in the beginning, because I would always say that I could not hang out because I was busy studying. His friends were convinced that he had made me up because I never came with him to anything; I was always either at work or at home studying. 

The portrayal of actuaries on TV and in movies does nothing to help our image. For instance, “About Schmidt,” in which Jack Nicholson portrays a sad, grumpy actuary who retires after losing his wife. Or in the TV show “Secret Diary of a Call Girl,” in which where a shy, lonely actuary visits a call girl and is excited by farm animal noises. I can only speak for myself, but farm animal noises do not do it for me (I have never watched this show, but found it on the Wikipedia page “Actuaries in Film,” and on TV). 

But not all actuaries in media fit the stereotype. There was a villain in the Batman comic book series called the Actuary who worked with the Penguin. While I do not read comic books, that Actuary sounds like a badass. 

There was a movie in 1948 called “Are You With it?” about an actuary who was forced to join a carnival after misplacing a decimal point in an actuarial table. This is actually my nightmare. 

One of the most famous portrayals is probably the character Reuben Feffer, played by Ben Stiller in the 2004 film “Along Came Polly.” He would determine whether or not to offer life insurance to individuals using a risk analyzer tool (which, much to the offense of his girlfriend, he also used to determine whether to reconcile with his unfaithful estranged wife or continue his relationship with his kind-hearted but impetuous girlfriend). Although his character was a risk assessment analyst and not an actuary, Reuben Feffer—with his cautious, mathematical approach to life—fits the common stereotypes of what many people think actuaries do and how they act (although his job was probably closer to an underwriter). 

Actuaries are often stereotyped as being introverted, neurotic, and boring, and we are usually portrayed that way in the media. And while actuaries tend to be analytical, logical and reserved, maybe our tendency to over-think is also what makes us good actuaries. Perhaps we are a bit too cautious and we should give more consideration to the potential upside of taking risks in our lives—to seize more of the opportunities that stepping out of our comfort zone brings. 

Tiffany Myers, FSA, EA, MSEA, is Manager, Actuarial Services, FuturePlan.