The SOA leadership has reached a new low.

[r. mutt]

Originally Posted by SamTheBellhop

The assertion that Insurance companies are less likely to be on board with giving employees PTO for society activities than consulting companies was originally suggested by someone else on this thread but definitely jives with what I've seen as well.
http://www.soa.org/leadership/electi...ate-names.aspx

As I said...I have yet to see a Fellow volunteer on the P&C side and be turned down, and yet I know dozens of people doing CAS volunteer work. As I said..maybe things are different on the SOA side.

[Ke$ha]

Originally Posted by JasonScandopolous

Although I entirely agree that P and FM are almost entirely contained within MFE/3F and 4/C.... Here are functions that 1/P and 2/FM serve:

1) Cash cow for the CAS/SOA: thousands take these cheap-to-administer tests... these are significant revenue (profit) sources for the actuarial organizations, if I'm not mistaken.

2) Most people will be coming from a four year bachelors degree, and they will not have faced a test as difficult as 1/P or 2/FM in their entire years of college. Before I get the "you went to a dumb college, then" argument, consider the on-your-own nature of studying for the test, the SAT-style trickery in the questions, and to a lesser extent the length of the test. If you didn't have 1/P as a stepping stone, I don't think there are many 21 year old college kids who would be able to muster the confidence or effort to tackle 300/400 hours of studying... especially since most of them would be smart kids who probably didn't study more than 10-20 hours for anything in their life before.

Neither 1 or 2 necessarily justify them existing, but I offer these as rationales for why they do exist (1) or maybe should exist (2).

I learned a lot from exam P and FM.

[Ke$ha]

Originally Posted by r. mutt

As I said...I have yet to see a Fellow volunteer on the P&C side and be turned down, and yet I know dozens of people doing CAS volunteer work. As I said..maybe things are different on the SOA side.

Depends which committee you are talking about..

Getting on the FEM steering committee or chairing the ACAS voting rights task force might be a little more difficult than you think.

[JasonScandopolous]

Originally Posted by Ke$ha

I learned a lot from exam P and FM.

Nothing you wouldn't have learned from 4/C or MFE... except maybe order statistics or something obscure like that. I don't think there's a single thing on FM that isn't on MFE, but maybe I'm just forgetting things.

[Shaft]

Originally Posted by bokiz333

lol, somebody's bitter.

yeah and certainly not "over it".

[r. mutt]

Originally Posted by Ke$ha

Depends which committee you are talking about..

Getting on the FEM steering committee or chairing the ACAS voting rights task force might be a little more difficult than you think.

I meant turned down by an employer. But I love the thought of you volunteering for an FEM steering committee.

Originally Posted by r. mutt

I meant turned down by an employer. But I love the thought of you volunteering for an FEM steering committee.

I have a friend who works for a state insurance department. They won't pay for him to do continuing ed out-of-state, or any other work-related travel out-of-state. I imagine they would let him spend time on a committee, but I doubt they would reimburse him in any way.

(For those SoA folks out there, the CAS only reimburses for exam and related committees, and for board and executive council stuff. If you volunteer for other committees, either your employer picks up the expenses or you do. Oh, and while most employers let you take off days/hours when your committee is actually meeting, if you take on a real time-sink like grading exams, you are generally expected to do most of that on your own time, not your employer's.)

[llcooljabe]

Originally Posted by JasonScandopolous

Nothing you wouldn't have learned from 4/C or MFE... except maybe order statistics or something obscure like that. I don't think there's a single thing on FM that isn't on MFE, but maybe I'm just forgetting things.

What happened to interest theory & the kellison textbook? Where's that material now?

The material is on FM; not sure if the Kellison text is still the recommended reading.

Jason is incorrect. Also, Chapters 1-5 & 8 are on FM and not retested on MFE (other than assumed background material).

[campbell]

They are trying to reduce the amount of repeated readings.

I've seen this on the FSA exam end.