More than half of FCAS members today hold at least one credential beyond their actuarial letters. Even when excluding the MAAA, nearly three in 10 Fellows report additional professional designations. For newly credentialed actuaries, those numbers raise a natural question: What comes next after FCAS, and why do so many choose to keep going?

As a new FCAS myself, I’ve been encouraged by many fellow insurance professionals to continue pursuing additional credentials while my study habits are still strong. As I explored what that next step might look like, I came across Rehan Siddique’s 2019 blog post, F,C,A,S and Other Letters of Actuarial Work. One important limitation he noted was that his analysis relied on self-reported data that was very incomplete.

Since that post was published, the CAS Portal has been launched, prompting members to review and update their profiles annually, including professional designations. This created an opportunity to revisit the analysis using more complete and current data. While the data is still not perfect, it has improved meaningfully, which is evident in the higher number of reported credentials.

Overall, 56% of FCAS and 34% of ACAS report holding at least one additional designation, with the MAAA unsurprisingly being the most common. To be eligible for MAAA, individuals with an ACAS designation need three years of actuarial experience, including one year in the United States. When excluding the MAAA, 29% of FCAS still report holding additional credentials. Among nonactuarial designations, the CPCU is the most common, held by approximately 6% of responding members. Its popularity highlights the value many actuaries place on developing a deeper understanding of underwriting, claims, and broader insurance operations.

To understand how credentials vary by role, members were grouped into management levels based on job titles. This categorization inevitably involves some subjectivity, but it provides a useful directional view of how credential accumulation evolves over a career. As management responsibility increases, the average number of reported designations also rises.

The following are examples of the types of titles in each category other than retired.

• Individual contributor: Actuary, analyst, associate, advisor, consultant
• Lower management: Manager, supervisor, team lead
• Middle management: Director, head of pricing
• Upper management: Chief actuary, CEO, founder, vice president

Members were also analyzed by product and practice area. Because members can select multiple, individuals may appear in more than one group. The most pursued designations are largely consistent across groups, though some intuitive differences stand out. For example, members indicating they currently work in enterprise risk management (ERM) are more likely to hold the CERA (chartered enterprise risk analyst) designation. Similarly, actuaries focused on catastrophe modeling may find value in the CAS’s catastrophe risk credentials, CSCR and CCRMP, which are designed to recognize specialized expertise in catastrophe risk analysis, modeling, and application.

The results suggest that many CAS members continue to find value in supplementing their actuarial credentials. For new members considering what comes next, there is no single right answer, but a wide range of paths shaped by evolving interests and career goals.