Description of Spring 2012 syllabus changes

[MATE Seminars]

I meant to get this out a little sooner, but wanted to make sure I gave top priority to getting the study manual updated. Then a short vacation followed . But now here you have a brief summary of what changed for this sitting. If you have any questions or want more details on any of this, please let me know. And happy studying.


The Handbook of Employee Benefits (Rosenbloom): Last sitting, either the 6th or 7th edition could be used. Now you must use the 7th edition. There weren’t any drastic changes between the two editions.

Essentials of Managed Care (Kongstvedt): This is a new book for this exam, replacing The Managed Health Care Handbook. The old book can still be used this sitting. This author used to produce both books, but merged the two with this edition. The “Essentials” book is derived from the “Handbook,” so it doesn’t have as much to it. That is why some of the old book’s chapters are now on the syllabus as study notes GH-C131, GH-C132, and GH-C133, since there weren’t chapters for them in the new book.

Since we are moving from one book to another, the new chapters (21, 22, 32, and 33) are not simply updates of old chapters. They are quite different. My personal recommendation is to use the new book unless you are sure you are passing this time, since the old book will be off the syllabus soon. I’m not sure how the SOA will approach exam questions from these books since there are quite a few differences between the 2 options of what you can study.

Note that one of the mappings the SOA did between these books didn’t make much sense. The old chapter 64 does not line up with the new chapter 33. The new chapter 33 is actually an update of the old chapter 69, which was on the syllabus a few years ago.

Healthcare Risk Adjustment and Predictive Modeling (Duncan): This is a new book for this exam, containing more than 150 pages of information that was not addressed previously. They removed a couple small notes on this topic from SOA meetings, but those were a drop in the bucket compared to how much is covered by this book.

Canadian topics: There is lots of new Canadian information added for this sitting. There are a couple of educational notes by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. Fortunately, these notes are not as big as they sound when you first see them on the syllabus. The valuation note is about 40 pages long once you add up all the different parts that appear in different learning objectives. The DCAT note is a little more than half that size.

Study note GH-C124 on Canadian tax issues is added, but it is mostly an update to GH-C107, which was dropped. Study note GH-C126 is also a Canadian topic, but it is quite small.

A couple parts of the Canadian Handbook of Flexible Benefits were added as study notes GH-C125 (chapter 13) and GH-C127 (section 12.4). These are familiar to DP exam takers since these chapters are also on that exam.

Then there are more Canadian Standards of Practice than on last year’s syllabus (study notes GH-C129 and GH-C130).

Other small additions: The Measurement of Healthcare Quality and Efficiency study was updated, so it has a few more pages this year. A very small Health Watch article “Health Section Issues New IBNR Study” was added. ASOP #42 is back on the syllabus (it keeps going off and then back on). And a small study note summarizing IAS 19 was added (GH-C128), which is on the same topic as Yamamoto chapter 8, which is still on the syllabus.

Lots of dropped items: Most of the readings that were removed were quite small, such as SOA meeting transcripts and articles from periodicals. I’m not going to list them all since they don’t matter much now that they are gone. But following is a summary of what was dropped.

The one that surprised me the most was the health reform information that was just added last year. That included the Kaiser summary of PPACA (which is now on DP) and a series of articles from The Actuary on “Responsible Health Care Reform.”

There were a few small papers on life insurance topics that have been on the syllabus for quite a few years, but are now gone. And a few small papers on enterprise risk management were also removed (those papers didn’t really say much that isn’t covered already elsewhere on the syllabus).

The most tested paper that was removed was study note GH-C108, which discussed actuarial cost models, the degree of healthcare management, and capitation rates (all leading to mathematical questions on past exams). It also discussed provider risk and reimbursement.

[MATE Seminars]

A post in another thread is asking about how chapter 64 of the old Kongstvedt book relates to chapter 33 of the new Kongstvedt book. Since the answer is provided in my post above, let me just quote what it says:

Note that one of the mappings the SOA did between these books didn’t make much sense. The old chapter 64 does not line up with the new chapter 33. The new chapter 33 is actually an update of the old chapter 69, which was on the syllabus a few years ago.

Because this mapping doesn't really match up between the two books, the old chapter 64 and new chapter 33 do not have much in common. They are two separate topics.

As I said in my original post above, I’m not sure how the SOA will approach exam questions from these books since there are quite a few differences between the 2 options of what you can study. But we do know that the SOA says we should study 1 of the 2 options (not both). So presumably any questions on that material will be covered by both options. Any question that can't be answered by using either option would appear to me to be a defective question. But of course I don't speak for the SOA, so I would be curious to hear their take on this.

[Prince William]

Is the syllabus for Fall 2012 the same as Spring 2012? The bookstores are showing "Fall 2012 New Edition" for CSP GH stuff.

[MATE Seminars]

The Fall 2012 syllabus started out the same as the Spring 2012 syllabus. And the MATE study materials for Fall 2012 are therefore very similar to the Spring 2012 materials. If you have Spring materials, they should be sufficient. The differences between the two are minor (mainly just edits).

But the SOA has now made a syllabus update to replace Kongstvedt chapter 33 with a chapter from the old Kongstvedt book, which is provided as a study note now. This change came after the Fall syllabus had been released and therefore after the MATE materials had been printed. But we have given the bookstores a small supplement to distribute to account for this change.

[spacecow]

There were lot of Canadian tax related questions in Spring 2012 sitting. Unfortunately I am not able to locate note cards for those Canadian questions. Am I missing something? Was there an additional reference material I should be looking outside the Mate note cards?

[SamTheEagle]

The syllabus has Analysis for Financial Management 9th edition listed, but actuarial bookstore has the 10th edition available for sale. Can anyone comment on whether this will cause me issues if I go with the 10th edition?

[MATE Seminars]

Originally Posted by SamTheEagle

The syllabus has Analysis for Financial Management 9th edition listed, but actuarial bookstore has the 10th edition available for sale. Can anyone comment on whether this will cause me issues if I go with the 10th edition?

That would be an indication that the SOA told the bookstores they might be switching to the 10th edition. I would hope that such a switch would occur when the syllabus is updated 6 months before the exam, rather than now (3.5 months out) or even later. But you never know with the SOA on things like this.

I haven't read the 10th edition since the syllabus still says to use the 9th edition. So I can't help you there. But I know the change from the 8th to the 9th edition wasn't big.

[SamTheEagle]

Yeah, it seems like a new edition of this book comes out every other year. Based on that alone, I'm figuring not much gets changed between updates. I'm on the one year plan for this exam, anyway, so I'll probably just wing it with the new edition.