Actuaries provide commercial, financial and prudential advice on the management of assets and liabilities - especially where long term management and planning are critical factors.Actuaries traditionally work in finance, investment and risk management, general insurance, life insurance, pensions and social security.

Actuaries apply financial and statistical techniques to solve real business problems. These business problems typically involve analysing future financial events, especially when the amount of a future payment, or the timing of when it is paid, is uncertain. A lot of actuaries' work might be thought of as 'risk management', assessing how likely an event may be and the costs associated with it.

World Class and Fit for the Future

■  Actuaries are in demand as the financial markets move towards market-consistent pricing and risk assessment.Market-consistent values of cash-flows are increasingly used for pricing, provisioning, determining capital requirements, pension fund deficits and acquisition offers.

■  Some acquisitions are stalling because of the uncertainty of the size of the deficit in the pension fund of the target company, which may not have been fully reflected in the market assessment of the company ahead of the acquisition.Early disclosure of the deficit on a market-consistent basis significantly eases the deal.

■  Embedded value techniques are now the norm in the financial reporting of European insurance companies.These techniques are becoming more market-consistent and are influencing the progress of international accounting standards.

■  Actuarial models are increasingly relied upon for value-based accounting standards and solvency returns for regulators where actuarial stochastic models are replacing formula-driven calculations for the determination of capital requirements.

Country Issues

■  Local actuarial associations should be encouraged – and may need help – to be Full Members of the International Actuarial Association (IAA), which monitors that professional structures are in accordance with international standards.  Where there is a local actuarial association that is not ready to be a Full Member it can join the IAA as an Associate Member and receive advice and assistance from the IAA to move towards Full Membership.

■  Of the countries on the overseas visits programme, the associations in Russia and Nigeria are Associate Members.China, Jordan, Bahrain and Brunei have local associations that are not yet Associate members.The status of Libya, Saudia Arabia, Kuwait and Oman, is unknown – there is probably no local association.

Contact:  Jeremy Goford on 020 7228 0166 / 077 1103 6912 or jeremy@goford.co.uk