ASPA exams

[Buru Buru]

I heard that there are exams from the society of pension actuaries (ASPA exams) that cover pension plan topics. I know that the EA exams are part of the syllabus. My question is, other than the EA exams, are the other ASPA exams beneficial to take? I don't know that much about them, just that they exist. I am so disgusted with the irrelevance of the SOA exams and was wondering: if there are these exams that are geared to pension actuaries then why isn't everyone taking them and why aren't they as highly regarded as the SOA exams?

[Milwaukee Dave]

ASPA exams are like FLMI. In other words I wouldn't go there unless you have time on your hands.

[Mardi]

be very careful! you may invoke HeWhoWillNotBeSilenced with discussion of this topic......

[Milwaukee Dave]

be very careful! you may invoke HeWhoWillNotBeSilenced with discussion of this topic......

you mean? oh no! not him. no way.

[Andy Lang]

Sometimes organizations start from bad places and then change to be in good places. (The AARP is in the prcess of doing this.)

Sometimes they change to become even worse (The GOP from Lincoln 1865 to the present, after taking a short detour under Teddy Roosevelt).

And sometimes the reverse is also true.

ASPA started from a very bad place, but it remains to be seen where they wind up.

At the NY Life in the early 60s, life insurance agents pretended to be actuaries. It got worse when they lobbied themselves in as 'actuaries' in 1974 under ERISA, and spent a decade or so doing tax shelters for Beverly Hills Doctors and Dentists, using extremely conservative actuarial assumptions, attracting some downsized real actuaries (insurance ones naturally) to do the same thing, thus obtainimng for the rest of us suckers huge numbers of bad pieces of pension legislation designed to curb their excesses. (Where was the SOA during this whole process? Could the fact that the SOA was heavily influenced by insurance actuaries have something to do with their silence?)

In doing so, they also drove nail after nail into the coffin of the large, multi-trillion dollar asset pension plan industry, where most of the plan participants are.

Finally large plan pension actuaries climbed on board and also decided to take advantage of the bad laws that were originally abused by ASPA folks (possibly lobbied in by), the ultimate being the CB plan fiasco.

Only God knows if ASPA folks are moving in the right direction--but don't you think they should as a minimum disclose any conflicts of interest they have to their clients?

BTW, some ASPA 'actuaries' are not members of the SOA nor are they insurance agents. There are some like lawyers for example who like to play up the fact that they are also ASPA members.

How can anyone say they are an actuary without studing life contingencies is a mystery inside a riddle inside an enigma.

Trojan Horses go back 6000 years. The current masters of them are known as Republicans.

Good to 'see' you Mardi.

Your friend and mine,
HeWhoWillNotBeSilenced

[Mardi]

knew you wouldn't be too far away, Andy

good to see you, too

[Buru Buru]

How can anyone say they are an actuary without studing life contingencies is a mystery inside a riddle inside an enigma.



This isn't exactly true. Exam EA-1 which is jointly sponsored by ASPA and the SOA covers life contingencies to the extent necessary in order to be a pension actuary. And all of the EA exams are required in order to be a fellow of ASPA. To me the EA exams are really good for pension actuaries to take in order to master their job.

My question was, are the rest of the exams as useful as the EA exams to pension actuaries?

[JMO]

http://www.aspa.org/

[Double High C]

Don't forget to spay and neuter your actuaries!