Actuarial Science (ACTS)
Open only to Actuarial Science majors.
Description: Course tracks completion of internship or professional development requirement for undergraduate Actuarial Science majors and graduate students in the Actuarial Science masters program.
Prerequisites: An undergraduate major in the College of Business with at least sophomore standing and departmental consent and acceptance into an approved internship. Departmental credit for course cross-listings may have additional requirements for consent.
May be repeated.
Description: Provides an opportunity to study theories, principles, practices, techniques, and strategies utilized in the business field through an internship related to the major field of study and an integral or important part of their program of study. Reflect on classroom knowledge and develop practical experience in professional business situations through an approved internship.
Prerequisites: Permission.
Prerequisites: MATH 208 or 208H and STAT 462, or parallel, and both with a grade of "Pass" or "C" or better.
Description: Calculus-based probability, both univariate and multivariate, applications to risk management-related problems. Problems as posed in the Society of Actuaries (SOA) Exam "P" and/or Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) Exam "1". Determination of loss frequency distributions and their characteristics, expected value, variance, and percentiles. Determination of loss severity distributions and their characteristics, expected value, variance, and percentiles. Determination of loss sharing parameters, deductibles, and maximum payments.
Prerequisites: ACTS 440/840 or parallel
Description: Application of basic mathematics of finance to problems involving valuation of financial transactions. Problems as posed in the "Society of Actuaries (SOA) Exam 'FM'" and/or "Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) Exam '2'". Determining equivalent measures of interest; estimating the rate of return on a fund; discounting or accumulating a sequence of payments with interest; determining yield rate; length of investment; amounts of investment contributions or amounts of investment returns for various types of financial transactions; and basic calculations involving yield curves, spot rates, forward rates, duration, convexity, immunization and short sales; introduction to financial derivatives (forwards, options, futures, and swaps) and their use in risk management; and introduction to the concept of no-arbitage as a fundamental concept in financial mathematics.
Description: Problems as posed in the Society of Actuaries (SOA) Exam "C" and/or Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) Exam "4". Construction of empirical models; construction and selection of parametric models; credibility theory; interpolation and smoothing of data; and simulation.
Description: Problems as posed in the "Society of Actuaries (SOA) Exam 'M'". Interest rate models; rational valuation of derivative securities (option pricing: put-call parity, the binomial model, Black-Scholes formula, and actuarial applications; interpretation of option Greeks and delta-hedging; features of exotic options; an introduction to Brownian motion and Itô's lemma); and risk management techniques.
Prerequisites: STAT 463
Description: Full, partial, Buhlmann, and Buhlmann-Straub credibility models. Introduction to empirical Bayes and statistical distributions used to model loss experience. Application of "polynomial splines" to actuarial data. Simulation of "discrete" and "continuous random" variables in context of actuarial models. Simulation to "p-value" of hypothesis test. "Bootstrap method" of estimating the "mean squared error" of an estimator.
This course is a prerequisite for: ACTS 404
Prerequisites: STAT 463 with a grade of "C" or better
Description: Parametric and tabular survival models. Estimation based on observations that might not be complete. Concomitant variables. Use of population data. Applications to groups with impaired lives.
This course is a prerequisite for: ACTS 404
Prerequisites: STAT 463 with a grade of "C" or better
Data sets processed and analyzed using statistical software.
Description: Introduction to forecasting in actuarial science. Simple and multiple regression, instrumental variables, time series methods, and applications of methods in forecasting actuarial variables. Interest rates, inflation rates, and claim frequencies.
Prerequisites: STAT 463 with a grade of "C" or better.
Description: Introduction to statistical learning with actuarial applications using time series models and machine learning techniques. The topics covered include time series models, principal component analysis (PCA), decision tree, and clustering.
Grade only
Description: Application of financial mathematics to problems involving valuation of financial transactions; equivalent measures of interest; rate of return on a fund; discounting or accumulating a sequence of payments with interest; and yield rates, length of investment, amounts of investment contributions or amounts of investment returns for various types of financial transactions; loans and bonds. Introduction to the mathematics of modern financial analysis. Calculations involving yield curves, spot rates, forward rates, duration, convexity, and immunization.
Description: Financial mathematics concepts related to short sales, forwards, options, futures, and swaps, and their use in risk management, hedging and investment strategies, fundamental concepts of put-call parity and no-arbitrage, and interest rate models.
Prerequisites: ACTS 471/871 with a grade of "C" or better
Description: Actuarial cost methods. Determination of normal costs and accrued liability. Effect on valuation results due to changes in experience, assumptions and plan provisions. Valuation of ancillary benefits. Determination of actuarially equivalent benefits at early or postponed retirement and optional forms of payment.
Prerequisites: STAT 463 with a grade of "C" or better
Description: Introduction to stochastic processes and their applications in actuarial science. Discrete-time and continuous-time processes; Markov chains; the Poisson process; compound Poisson processes; non-homogeneous Poisson processes; arithmetic and geometric Brownian motions. Applications of these processes in computation of resident fees for continuing care retirement communities. Pricing of financial instruments.
Second course of a two-course sequence that includes ACTS 470.
Description: Life insurance reserve for models based on a single life. Introduction to multiple life models for pensions and life insurance and to multiple decrement models.
Prerequisites: STAT 462 with a grade of "C" or better
Description: Applications of compound distributions in modeling of insurance loss. Continuous-time compound Poisson surplus processes, computation of ruin probabilities, the distributions of the deficit at the time of ruin, and the maximal aggregate loss. The effect of reinsurance on the probability of ruin.
This course is a prerequisite for: ACTS 403
Prerequisites: STAT 462 with a grade of "C" or better.
Description: Mathematical, financial, and risk-theoretical foundations of casualty actuarial science. Risk theory, loss reserving, ratemaking, risk classification, credibility theory, reinsurance, financial pricing of insurance, and other special issues and applications.