Society of Actuaries (SOA) – A Brief Overview.

Society of Actuaries (SOA) was founded in 1949 as a merger of two major actuarial organizations in the United States: The Actuarial Society of America and the American Institute of Actuaries.

Society of Actuaries is one of the most followed societies for candidates to become an Actuary across the world. The SOA represents actuaries from all major areas of practice, including life and health insurance, retirement and pensions, investment and finance, enterprise risk management, and general insurance (property and casualty) insurance.

The Casualty Actuarial Society also represents actuaries working with property and casualty. Some facts about SOA:

There are 3 different pathways: Associate, CERA (Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst) and Fellow of SOA.

CERA (Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst)

Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst (CERA) is a new designation released by the Society of Actuaries (SOA) in 2007. Historically, actuaries have worked in the insurance industry and fields related to the insurance industry, including pensions.

However, the SOA wants to branch actuaries out into non-traditional fields and the Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst designation is another step in that direction.

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Associate of the Society of Actuaries(ASA)

For Becoming the ASA you must have to clear these exams. It usually takes 3-4 years to complete the pathway. Some important things to consider are:

1. Candidates must have passed 12^th grade or equivalent and must have maths in 12^th grade.
2. Some exams are Computer Based Test(CBT) while some are Written Test(WA). For E.g.- Exam P, FM, IFM, SRM, STAM are CBT while Exam LTAM is WA
3. For getting the CERA designation you only have to give only one extra exam apart from ASA that is ERM.
4. Duration of each exam also differs from each other. For E.g.- Exam P, FM have a duration of 3 hr while Exam LTAM has a duration of 4:15 hrs
5. Some exams occur 5-6 times a year like Exam P and FM while some occur 3-4 times while some occur 2 times a year.
6. Candidates seeking to get there FSA designation, have to complete their ASA pathway first.
7. Gaining CERA credential is totally optional.  

Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA)

After Completing your ASA or CERA, one can choose his/her speciality track from SOA There are 6 tracks into which one can register for. Generally, it takes 2-3 year for completing the FSA Pathway. The pathway of FSA is:

The purpose of this article was just to provide a brief overview of the Society of Actuaries (SOA), hope you find it helpful. Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

About the Author:

My name is Sampann Somani, pursuing B.Sc. Maths (H) and doing actuarial science from SOA. I have cleared 4 papers till now and planning ahead to give the LTAM exam in the coming fall attempt.