Note from the Editor:

At the end of May, Sholom Feldblum announced that he was seeking nomination as candidate for president-elect of the CAS. In a letter addressed to Fellows of the CAS, Feldblum discussed several concerns that he believes are important to the future of the CAS, and are likely to be of interest to most CAS members. Many of these concerns have been discussed in previous issues of The AR. As an aid to members, this issue provides facts and figures on two of these concerns: the property/casualty content on SOA exams, below and travel time. We expect to run an article on Exams 3 and 4 in the November issue. And, as always, we encourage readers to send us their opinions regarding the important issues facing the CAS.

SOA's Syllabus of Examinations

The editorial staff of The AR thought that members would appreciate knowing the extent to which the Society of Actuaries (SOA) includes property/casualty material on its syllabus.

The SOA and the CAS jointly sponsor the first four examinations:

• Course 1: Mathematical Foundations of Actuarial Science
• Course 2: Interest Theory, Economics, and Finance
• Course 3: Actuarial Models
• Course 4: Actuarial Modeling The structure of the remaining SOA examinations is as follows:
• Course 5: Application of Basic Actuarial Principals
• Course 6: Finance and Investments
• Associate Professionalism Course
• Course 7: Applied Modeling
• Course 8: Advanced Specialized Actuarial Practice (Candidates must choose one of the following:
  Finance; Health, Group Life and Managed Care; Individual Insurance; Investments; Retirement Benefits.)
• Professional Development Requirement
• Fellowship Admissions Course

The SOA Course 5, Application of Basic Actuarial Principals, covers basic actuarial principals related to life, health, property and casualty insurance, annuities, and retirement systems. The property and casualty material consists of Introduction to Ratemaking and Loss Reserving for Property and Casualty Insurance,1993, by R. L. Brown. This edition of the book has four chapters: "Why Insurance?"; "Coverages"; "Ratemaking"; and "Loss Reserving".

The information shown above, with the exception of the chapter names from the book by R. L. Brown, is extracted directly from the SOA's syllabus. You can find the syllabus by going to the SOA's Web Site, www.soa.org, clicking on "Education & Examinations," and then clicking on "Fall 2001 Basic Education Catalog."