Stuart Klugman
In the previous edition of this newsletter I reported that the NAIC had adopted a plan to establish knowledge statements and educational standards for appointed actuaries by which the Society of Actuaries (SOA) and Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) education systems could be evaluated. After completing a job analysis (reported on previously), the next steps were:
- 1. Form a group of subject matter experts (SMEs) to review the job analysis statements. They will recommend changes based on the feedback received from the December 2017 distribution of those statements. The NAIC will sign off on the final version.
- 2. The SMEs will then propose educational standards. They should be the minimum education required to sign current statements for typical lines of business and business activities. The NAIC will sign off on the final version.
- 3. The CAS and SOA map their current educational systems to these standards. They will propose changes to their curricula to close identified gaps.
- 4. An iterative discussion will take place between the NAIC and the actuarial societies that will eventually lead to the NAIC determining if the education provided meets the educational standards.
As of this writing, Steps 1 through 3 have been completed. After a period of public review, the NAIC adopted the final set of educational standards. The SOA team working on this had provided several comments mostly to ask for clarification in certain areas. The team was pleased with the outcome.
The team went to work on completing the mapping of the SOA’s exams to these standards. The results were submitted at the end of November. This completed Step 3. The NAIC has allotted several months for the review of our mapping. We don’t expect to hear from them until early April of 2019. If this schedule is maintained, a decision will be made by the end of May.
Stuart Klugman, FSA, CERA, Ph.D., is a senior staff fellow for the Society of Actuaries. He can be contacted at sklugman@soa.org.