Actuaries come of age

Great things are happening in India's actuarial world, says Venkatachari Jagannathan.

Chennai: Tumultuous events have happened during the last five years at the 60-year-old Actuarial Society of India (ASI), the governing body of the Indian actuarial profession. Not surprisingly, the ASI has hit the news columns regularly — for some good and some not-so-good — reasons.

Today, the ASI is poised to become an institute under an Act of the Parliament. With all the hurdles removed, the Actuaries Bill 2005 is waiting to be introduced in parliament. For years, Indian actuaries flew overseas for jobs; now, the liberalisation of the Indian insurance industry has opened up new vistas for them, in terms of professional knowledge as well as personal earnings.

Says K S Gopalakrishnan, appointed actuary, Birla Sun Life Insurance, "Actuaries are now exposed to global reporting methods. Suddenly they have to deal with shareholders, market demands, overseas regulatory norms. These were not there earlier."

He says there is a greater focus on risk and its management. "With policies getting ripped open by the competition immediately after their launch, there is an added pressure on the actuaries to design a different product," he explains.