1. Top Factors That Influence Your Actuarial Salary
2. There are many salary tables available to tell you what you should earn at each step in your actuarial career.
3. What they don’t clarify are the different factors that can influence your actuarial salary.
4. Location
5. The first question on the Payscale.com salary tool on the Society of Actuaries website is location.
6. Larger cities, like San Francisco and New York, pay more than cities in the Midwest and South, where cost of living is lower.
8. Experience
9. Unsurprisingly, more years of experience mean more pay. There are some exceptions to this.
10. If you stay in the same company for along time, you can miss out on the pay bump that often comes with a job change.
11. Also, new actuaries with in-demand data science skills can make more than experienced actuaries with more traditional skills.
12. Accreditation
13. Third party credentials for accreditations can be a plus in any career. Actuaries must pursue an ASA or ACAS and then an FSA or FCAS to reach the top levels of actuarial salary.
14. Actuaries who chose to stop at the lower-level accreditation will typically top out in salary at a much lower level than the FSA or FCAS regardless of years of experience.
15. Product Expertise
16. P&C, Life and Health specializations pay more than Pension.
17. Specific product knowledge and experience can mean significant differences in compensation
18. Niche skills that precisely match a position opening mean even more money.
19. Management Responsibilities
20. Are you a high-level individual contributor or are you managing a team?
21. Management can garner you a better actuarial salary but don’t lose your product expertise.
22. Actuarial science is highly valued for he individual’s technical skills.
23. While soft skills are essential for advancement, your promotability can level off if those are the only skills you retain.
24. Organization Size
25. Multiple internal opportunities exist within organizations of 10,000+ employees.
26. You’re likely to receive annual increases and regular promotion opportunities as well.
27. Smaller organizations may hae few promotion opportunities b, but you may have an opportunity to wear more hats.
28. Building a broader skill set may not earn you more initially, but better skills can mean more money down the road.
29. Underrepresentation
30. Minorities and women are underrepresented within the actuarial field.
31. Some organizations, typically larger ones, make an effort to rebalance their staffing with diversity planning in mind.
32. That could lead to better starting salaries for those candidates.
33. Interested in discussing your actuarial salary with an experienced actuarial recruiter?
34. Contact Smith Hanley Associates‘ Actuarial Practice Lead, Rory Hauser at rhauser@smithhanley.com
35. www.smithhanley.com
