Actuarial technical questions

"What is the difference between frequency and severity in non-life insurance pricing?" Frequency: how often a claim occurs (claims per policy per year). Severity: the size of a claim when it occurs (average cost per claim). Expected loss = frequency x severity. Modelling separately allows more granular risk segmentation — a young driver may have higher frequency; a sports car driver higher severity. GLMs are the standard pricing tool: Poisson distribution for frequency, Gamma or log-normal for severity. "Explain what an exposure is in insurance." The unit of risk determining the level of premium. Motor: one car-year. Employers' liability: £100 of payroll. Property: sum insured. Earned exposure relates to the period in which a loss could have occurred; written exposure is what was written in the period.

Actuarial exams and qualification

"Where are you in the IFoA exam process?" Show a realistic plan and genuine commitment. IFoA qualification: Core Principles (CP1, CP2, CP3), Core Practices (CS1, CS2, CM1, CM2), Specialist Principles and Advanced. Full qualification takes five to ten years alongside full-time work. Employers provide study support (study days, exam fees, salary increases on passing). If interviewing without exams yet: credible self-study plan, awareness of the difficulty, genuine commitment to the long road. "Tell me about a challenging actuarial concept you had to learn." Shows intellectual curiosity, self-directed learning, and resilience — essential for actuarial students.

Commercial and business questions

"What is happening in the general insurance market in 2026 that affects actuaries?" Claims inflation (motor repair, legal costs, rebuild costs above general inflation — models built on historical data may understate future costs), climate change (flood, subsidence, extreme weather requiring fundamental reassessment of catastrophe models), AI in claims assessment (changing the frequency-severity dynamic), reinsurance market hardening (reducing capacity for some insurers). Show you follow the market: LloydsList, The Actuary magazine, PRA and FCA publications. "What is Solvency UK?" The post-Brexit successor to Solvency II, reforming the UK insurance prudential framework. Three pillars: quantitative requirements (SCR, MCR, technical provisions), governance and risk management (ORSA), supervisory reporting. Actuaries are central to compliance.

Behavioral questions

"Tell me about a time you explained a complex quantitative concept to a non-technical audience." Actuaries communicate risk and uncertainty to board members and underwriters who lack actuarial training. Show you can translate: analogies, business implications rather than methodology, visualisation, no jargon. "Describe a time you identified an error in a model or analysis." Show robust checking habits (sense checking against benchmarks, peer review, regression testing), that you investigated and understood the cause, and that you implemented appropriate fixes and controls.

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Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to qualify as an actuary in the UK?
On average five to seven years from starting IFoA exams to qualifying as a Fellow (FIA). The fastest students qualify in four years; many take longer. Most pass two to three exams per year working full-time with employer study support. The exams cover mathematics, statistics, economics, and business topics and require sustained intellectual effort over many years.
What is the difference between a life actuary and a general insurance actuary?
Life actuaries work in life insurance and pensions: long-term contracts (decades), products like life assurance, annuities, income protection, and DB pension scheme valuation. Mortality modelling is the defining technical feature. GI actuaries work in non-life insurance: short-tail lines (motor, household) and long-tail lines (EL, PI — claims can take decades to settle). GI tools focus on claims triangles, chain ladder methods, and GLM pricing.