February 2016

Upcoming Professionalism Webinar—Your Credentials are There, Whether You Rely on Them or Not

Nick OrtnerBy Nick Ortner

The EAS is finalizing plans to present a professionalism webinar—certified to count toward continuing professional development (CPD) requirements—within the next few months, so keep your eyes and ears peeled for that announcement. The EAS will be enlisting traditional Society of Actuaries (SOA) experts, along with nontraditional actuaries, to address professionalism in the context of actuaries expanding their boundaries into new fields, with the assistance of creative case studies to lend clarity to a number of important and interrelated issues.

Traditional experts will infuse the webinar with the following:

  1. Valuable overviews and insights into relevant precepts, qualification standards, ASOPs, and designations and their use, in cases where the applicability and answers may not be crystal clear;

  2. Discussions will focus on the issuance of statements of actuarial opinion (SAOs); overview of education, specialty tracks and changing/crossing specialty tracks; and defining and clarifying actuarial services, all while also lending its depth and knowledge to the case studies separately presented.

A third integral piece of the webinar will be a nontraditional actuarial authority delivering insight from the perspective of a practicing actuary breaking new ground in a nontraditional role, detailing his background/story to then stage the lessons learned in making such a transition and highlighting guidance and direction provided by the Actuarial Board for Counseling and Discipline.

The final component of the webinar will be case studies that show how the actuary:

  1. Evolves into different roles and companies;
  2. Takes on new roles and responsibilities; and
  3. Encounters serious questions tied to:
    • Code of Professional Conduct;
    • Use of actuarial designations; and
    • Compliance with CPD requirements.

We’re looking forward to the upcoming webinar’s new take on an old (and still vital) topic, and similarly looking forward to you joining us, so please be aware of that upcoming announcement!

Nick Ortner, FSA, MAAA, is sales vice president for the Group Markets practice of National Guardian Life Insurance Company in Madison, Wis. and past chair of the EAS. He may be reached at +1-608-443-5280 or njortner@nglic.com.