A close second in FSA recipients and actuarial insurance positions; a potentially lucrative and

rewarding option; and, often regarded as the most exciting and fast-paced of the actuarial fields:
we will now move onto the Health and Group track. Similar to life and annuities, the group and
health track offers excellent progression opportunities in a company, while the administrative
duties within health actuarial consulting allow for exit opportunities into MBA programs and
leadership roles in insurance companies.

Unlike life and annuities, however, health and group actuaries have the ability to pursue
healthcare specific consultancies like Wakely Consulting and Oliver Wyman. This track offers a
unique opportunity because the exit opportunities flow more directly into companies looking for
leaders, but the healthcare experience also ensures that an actuary can achieve a supervisory
position in a health insurance company immediately. Actuaries specifically seek out the health
path in part for the compensation, which offers a competitive starting salary and allows for fast
and significant growth.
The other primary incentive for actuaries to pursue the health path comes in the form of an active
and challenging workplace; actuaries regard the health profession especially highly due its
unpredictable in both duration and amount (claim price). Unlike life and annuities which had an
uncertain time-period but well-defined payout structure and quantity, health actuaries combat
temporal uncertainty and price volatility. Since an actuary cannot know exactly when an insured
will get sick or injured, nor will he or she know the severity or coverage options of the ailment,
making both the timeline and the payout ill-defined.
In industry, health actuaries serve to price insurance plans and forecast potential claims to reduce
an insurer’s overall financial risk. Similar to life actuaries, health actuaries who work directly for
insurance firms will only manage the finances and risk of their own firms, while consulting
health actuaries advise insurers and other firms/programs (hospitals, medicare facilitators, etc.).
Most actuaries who choose to pursue health-focused professions first achieve their FSA in the
Health and Group option. The SOA intends for this fellowship to prepare candidates for careers
in health and benefits fields, but it also prepares fellows to lead both small teams and large
companies. Besides the exams (which I will touch on later), the mandatory Health Economics
and Health Foundations Modules appear to comprehensively cover both the quantitative and
qualitative sides of healthcare analysis. The exams undertake the same format as the ILA track,
that being two 5.5 hour and one 2 hours exam, and consist of a sequence of three health specific
exams: Group and Health Core, Advanced, and Specialty. These exams test knowledge of health-
related actuarial concepts, but also the ability to competently express these difficult concepts in
deliverable essay form. The final two modules and professionalism course do not deviate from
the standard FSA path, so we will not dive into them again.