General Presentation

What is an Actuary ?  

Quoting the definition by the ‘Institut des Actuaires’ (IA) : “L'actuaire est un professionnel de l’évaluation, la modélisation et de la gestion des risques dans leurs dimensions comptable, économique, assurantielle, financière et sociale.” and by the British Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) : “Actuaries are respected professionals whose innovative approach to making business successful is matched by a responsibility to the public interest. Actuaries identify solutions to financial problems. They manage assets and liabilities by analyzing past events, assessing the present risk involved and modeling what could happen in the future.”

An actuary is an expert in risk management and quantitative finance. With a strong scientific (mathematics) background, the actuary has to master not only methods and tools from data science and economical and financial theories to develop mathematical models for measuring the uncertain evolution of the environment, in view of risk management, but also be comfortable with the legal, accounting and business aspects, part of the domain in which she/he has to operate.

An actuary, due to her/his multiple skills, can occupy many functions (analyst, researcher, consultant, data scientist, product manager, risk manager, …) in various fields of activity such as administration, (re)insurance, audit, consulting, bank and finance, teaching and research, industry and services, …

Students from the QRM (Quantitative Risk Management) & Actuarial Track get a double skill: technical and managerial. The technical training helps the actuary to understand the stochastic nature of the problems they have to solve, as well as the strategic issues behind the financial products. This business school environment makes the actuarial track particularly suited to cope with the changes the actuarial profession is currently undergoing, with the advent of risk based solvency and the emphasis made on risk management within financial institutions. Combining quantitative courses in Finance and Risk Management with their management training, the ESSEC actuary is well rounded to address the strategic issues of a bank, insurance or financial institution, tasks that are more and more in demand within the industry. The international dimension developed at ESSEC is also quite an asset in a globalized world. That is why ESSEC actuaries are sought after and have fast and interesting career opportunities, worldwide.

Among all actuarial masters in France, only 10 are accredited by the French Institute of Actuaries (‘Institut des Actuaires’ - IA) and the actuarial track at ESSEC is the only one hosted by a business school in France, through an agreement between ESSEC and ISUP (Institut de Statistique de Paris, Sorbonne Université, Faculté des Sciences), since 1991. Candidates completing this track need to perform a 6 months of internship in a company and to write an actuarial thesis, that will be defended in front of an IA-committee. If successful, they obtain the title of Actuary (member of IA), in addition to their ESSEC degree. Note that the actuarial track has been open to non-French speaking students from the academic year 2017-18.

For any updated information

• On the actuarial track:  https://crear.essec.edu/risk-actuarial-track or https://isds-department.essec.edu/pedagogy/tracks

• On the Working Group on Risk: https://crear.essec.edu/crear-events/working-group-on-risk

• On the Center of Research in Econo-finance and Actuarial science on Risk (CREAR) : https://crear.essec.edu/

• On ‘Institut des Actuaires’ : https://www.institutdesactuaires.com/