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Amended Qualification Standards for Actuaries Issuing Statements of Actuarial Opinion in the United States Released
| To: | Members of Actuarial Organizations Governed by the Qualification Standards of the American Academy of Actuaries | |
|---|---|---|
| — | — | |
| From: | The Board of Directors of the American Academy of Actuaries & The Committee on Qualifications of the American Academy of Actuaries | |
| Re: | Qualification Standards for Actuaries Issuing Statements of Actuarial Opinion in the United States |
The amended Qualification Standards for Actuaries Issuing Statements of Actuarial Opinion in the United States (U.S. Qualification Standards or USQS) promulgated by the American Academy of Actuaries (the Academy) are now available. This document supersedes in its entirety the Qualification Standards (including Continuing Education Requirements) for Actuaries Issuing Statements of Actuarial Opinion in the United States that took effect January 1, 2008. The amended U.S. Qualification Standards take effect January 1, 2022, indicating that this document applies to actuaries issuing statements of actuarial opinion starting on January 1, 2023, and that such actuaries will need to meet the continuing education (CE) requirements before issuing any Statement of Actuarial Opinion (SAO) in 2023.
The Academy will host a webinar on Dec. 20 at noon EST to discuss the amended standards and the Committee on Qualifications is working to update the Frequently Asked Questions. Registration for the webinar will open soon.|
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I saw the 1 hour bias topics requirement made it in — any other major changes or just the stuff around generalizing the definition of qualified actuary?
re: bias topics – from the doc
b. Bias topics include content that provides knowledge and perspective that assist in
identifying and assessing biases that may exist in data, assumptions, algorithms,
and models that impact Actuarial Services. Biases may include but are not limited
to statistical, cognitive, and social biases.
Statistical bias means when the expected value of a statistical estimator is not the “real” value of what you’re trying to estimate.
Bias means a lot of different things, depending on context.
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Ok, reading through, the bias topics looks like the only major change.
CE Requirements are:
30 total CE hours per year
At least 6 credits in organized activities
At least 1 in bias topics (which I think is a subset of professionalism?)
At least 3 in professionalism
At most 3 in business
FWIW, if you wanted to, you could have all 30 CE hours in professionalism in organized activities on bias topics, and that would fulfill requirements.
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Unless you are signing the capital SAO, then the specific requirements apply and you can’t get away with that I think.
I tend to think this confusion leads to real errors.
Bias in the statistical sense is a practically inevitable consequence of learning. It can be good or bad depending on the environment.
Bias in the ordinary sense of the word is always bad.
So as I understand the words, statistical bias that is an inevitable consequence of the finite nature of our brains can also lead to racial bias in our everyday lives or in our conceptual understanding of things. Different biases also allow us to turn 2D images into 3 dimensional concepts, and help us immensely.
Its not clear to me how this learning objective distinguishes between the two. For example, random effects models or actuarial credibility have classical statistical bias built into them from a particular perspective. Does studying these meet this objective? Probably not by intent, but maybe so by wording.
Gah. I really wish they had a minimum in “specific” topics, and not a maximum in “business”. I just feel like it gives the wrong message that there’s a max, when many actuaries would be more effective with more business training. Sure, you shouldn’t have only business, but this just feels like the wrong way to construct the requirements.
What specific topics though? These are requirements for the entire profession, not just life, or health, or P&C.
No, statistical bias has a very specific mathematical definition, which has nothing to do with human brains.
For example, the sample mean is an unbiased estimator for the actual population mean. There’s no statistical bias.
The sample median might be a biased estimator for the population mean, if the actual distribution is not symmetric.
I could do another (free) CE video, but I’ll do it later, and y’all can learn what statistical bias means if you don’t already know what it means. Statistical estimators are random variables… yadda yadda yadda.
I don’t need to throw this thread off course re: what has changed for those of us who have satisfied basic education requirements and need to think about what has changed for continuing education requirements.
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To be blunt, I get far more than 30 CE “hours” each year. I could satisfy the requirement, other than the “organized” aspect, within January.
If I were really nasty, I would just disallow this “business” CE. Make it all actuarial-related.
Hell, make it all professionalism.
Make it all ASOP 56.
Now we’re talking.
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Right, but use of imperfect models tend to lead to biases in that sense. And incorporation of prior information does too, which is most easily seen when bayesian priors on parameters lead to estimates that are biased in the classical sense.
The only time i’m aware that biases don’t exist in real world measurements is when you have the right scientific theory, and then make unbiased estimate of parameters in that theory. And even then true unbiasedness is only a kind of ideal limit. But our finite brains cannot formulate or evaluate such a theory in our everyday lives, even if such a theory does exist. So we use biased approximations instead.
Topics relevant to an actuarial job you have or might have in the future. I guess I really mean there should be a minimum for the “all other”.
I don’t think you SHOULD be able to get just professionalism. I think you should keep up to date in your field, too. But I don’t think you should be discouraged from business CE, and I feel like the current rules imply that.
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Is this a typo or am I missing something? Isn’t it 3 in professionalism (as it has always been)?
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Whups, let me fix that.
This recent webcast
https://www.actuary.org/node/14963
covers bias topics:
Attendees of the webinar can count this towards the new U.S. Qualification Standards (USQS) requirement of annual bias education. Learn more.
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I come here when I’m studying to get away from course notes, not be confronted with them.
Thank you very much.
You’re welcome.
I wonder if this google talk might qualify as bias training: The Ethical Algorithm
Or perhaps the book by the same name…
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I would likely count that
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