The Centre is in talks with the UK-based global actuarial professional body, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA), to introduce a specialised actuarial course at the State-owned National Insurance Academy (NIA) in Pune from the next academic session.

This is line with the huge demand for specialised actuaries, especially in the future, following the hike in FDI to 49 per cent from 26 per cent in the insurance sector of.

“We are trying to introduce a specialised actuarial course at NIA in association with IFoA from the next academic session. However, I can’t say anything more at present as we are still devising the course material. All I can say at the moment is that it will be different from our existing programmes,” National Insurance Academy Director Sushobhan Sarkar told PTI.

IFoA Chief Executive Derek Cribb had called on the Joint Secretary in the Finance Ministry, Anup Wadhwa, in this connection some time back. IFoA introduced a specialised actuary course — Certified Actuarial Analysts (CAA) — in August last year.

“We recently interacted with the Joint Secretary, Anup Wadhwa, in New Delhi. At the meeting, we discussed how to meet the actuarial requirement in the country and how the CAA will play a role in it. Wadhwa said he was keen to promote NIA to develop the course,” IFoA’s Cribb told PTI on the sidelines of an event here.

“We have suggested having a two-year post-graduate diploma in actuarial science at NIA. We are sure that an actuarial course may be a possibility as we are likely to have some tie-up with the institute for the same in the future,” Cribb said. The total fee for undergoing a CAA course will be 380 pounds.

Currently, there are 260 actuaries in the country who are fully qualified and have passed all the 15 exams required to become a full-fledged actuary. The problem is merely 20-30 people of the 9,000 who study the actuary course in the country, qualify every year.

“I do believe that India will require 1,000 full-fledged actuaries and 10,000 CAAs in the days to come,” Cribb said.

Globally, 200 students are undergoing the CAA course and 150 of them are from the UK alone, he said.

The kind of job that most people in Indian insurance companies are doing doesn’t require them to be a fully qualified actuary and that’s where the difference comes in, he added.

“We are in talks with a number of Indian universities for the CAA course, though the talks are in an early stage at present. We are also likely to start talking to the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) for the course,” IFoA Director of Public Affairs Paul Reynolds said.

Actuaries possess expertise in the fields of statistics and mathematics, and help in risk assessment and estimation of premiums for an insurance business based upon past occurrences.

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