Talk:Actuary

Disciplines
We list the main disciplines as life and non life. "Non life" is not a term really used often in the U.S. This wouldn't matter, except that I notice that this article is written in American English, so it seems a little inconsistent. I'd consider the main U.S. disciplines as 1) life, 2) health, 3) pension, 4) property/casualty. Lumping health together with P&C may not be the best choice from a U.S. perspective considering that the actuarial societies here actually group health with life. Just food for thought. Is there a consensus for the "perspective" we're going for, regionally? I guess an "as global as possible" perspective works, but then I kind of wonder why we chose U.S. spelling throughout? -KaJunl (talk) 15:58, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The paragraph discussing non-life begins "Non-life actuaries, also known as property and casualty or general insurance actuaries…" so I think the confusion, if any, is minimal. -- Avi (talk) 16:14, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I think the question still stands as to why life (and maybe P&C as well) are being singled out over the others. Amolvaidya06 (talk) 15:51, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
 * We don't restrict the disciplines to two; we say that the disciplines fall into two categories. The Society of Actuaries started using "long-term" and "short-term" but even those aren't completely correct as workers comp is long term, yet workers comp was the very reason the Casualty Actuarial Society split off in 1914. Colloquially, I do not recall any actuaries with whom I've interacted, both US and foreign, who did not use this split (Life/Non-life or Life/P&C) where Life meant life, health, and pension and non-life/P&C means everything else. -- Avi (talk) 17:56, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

No mention of the changes in the field due to AI?
Others mention the strange style of this page (feels like an ad for the profession), but what strikes me the most is the complete lack of mention of how AI/ML will change (nearly aliminate?) this profession. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ebarcell (talk • contribs) 05:01, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * It won't eliminate the profession any more than the computer replacing the slide rule did. The role will evolve as it has been over the past 150 or so years. Furthermore, that is speculation on your part. If you have well-written, reliable, and verifiable third-party sources which discuss that issue, suggest them here on the talk page and perhaps they can be included in the article. -- Avi (talk) 06:02, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Shortened footnotes proposal, August 2020
I see that there have been a number of complaints about this article's citation style above, with responses from the article's primary editor. I came here because mentioned this article in his proposal at  as an example of how parenthetical citations clutter the text and make reading more difficult. I opposed that proposal, but I thought here I would suggest converting the parenthetical citations to shortened footnotes as a compromise between all the people who have been complaining about this article's impaired readability and the primary editor who prefers parenthetical citations.

For example,

would become

And

would become

As you can see, changing to shortened footnotes would be only a minor change to the article's wikitext, but would address the many complaints that this talk page has already seen about the current citation style. If there had been no complaints, I wouldn't bother proposing this, but the quantity of complaints above suggests that there is an issue worth addressing.

currently mentions this article and Irish phonology as featured articles that use parenthetical referencing. Irish phonology makes good use of shortened footnotes in addition to inline Harvcoltxt and Harvcolnb. If this article were to follow Irish phonology's use of shortened footnotes, it would be a good compromise between the complainants above and the defender of the status quo. If there are no objections, I will make the change to shortened footnotes in this article. Biogeographist (talk) 16:41, 6 August 2020 (UTC)


 * As it's late here (after midnight), I will keep this short. The first, and most important point, is that you should wait for a response from (who seeems to be quite busy off-wiki at the moment) before making any significant changes. Although, in general, I prefer the harv/sfn style, I should point out that switching this article to sfn will mean that an additional section will be needed for the short cites, and an additional click will be necessary to reach the full citation, thus losing one two of the advantages of in-text parenthetical referencing. You might also be interested in this long thread on my talk page about citation style and referencing. I hope to respond further when I've had time to consider your proposal more fully, but for now you should consider that I'm mildly opposed, but that might change after further thought. --NSH001 (talk) 23:33, 8 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I intended to wait; there is no rush. Note that the strictest version of 's proposal at would ban parenthetical citations entirely, so if you are opposed to that idea you should express your opposition at  as well. Also note that the number of clicks needed to view the complete reference using shortened citations varies depending on the configuration of the user's web browser. An extra click for the complete reference is required for mobile/touchscreen devices and browsers with JavaScript disabled, but for other browsers there is no clicking at all: just mouse over a footnote and the author-date references appear in a floating box, then mouse over an author-date reference and the complete reference appears in another floating box. I am in the former group of users, not the latter, so I understand the extra click, though it doesn't bother me. Biogeographist (talk) 12:20, 9 August 2020 (UTC)


 * You pre-empted me, I was going to say there's no rush! Yes, I'm strongly opposed to Eek's proposals - all of them, in any variety, so I will go there (not enough time yesterday, well this a.m., really) reluctantly. I am generally reluctant to go on any of the wiki discussion boards, as they can turn into a huge time sink, but this one is an exception. You might like to note that I've added an update to the long thread on my talk page that I mentioned above, where parenthetical referencing gets a mention. I actually see the getting rid of a whole section (for the short cites) as a significant positive for parenthetical referencing, and more important than the number of clicks. --NSH001 (talk) 14:44, 9 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Regarding: I actually see the getting rid of a whole section (for the short cites) as a significant positive for parenthetical referencing, and more important than the number of clicks. This never would have occurred to me as a significant positive: Why do you see it as a significant positive? If it is a positive, that positive would need to be weighed against the positive of improving readability for readers such as the complainants above. As I mentioned, many readers won't see the sections at the bottom of the article, since they will just mouse over the links and the references will appear in a floating box.
 * responded to one readability complaint by claiming that the current style is much more similar to the citation styles used in academic work than footnote citations. This claim is puzzling to me since some of the most prominent journals use other styles, such as footnotes (e.g. Nature) or parenthetical numbers (e.g. Science). But many (most?) Wikipedia readers may not be accustomed to reading any academic work at all, so which citation style is most favored by academics outside of Wikipedia would not be a relevant issue for them. (I am a poor evaluator in this respect, since I am an avid reader of academic work.) Biogeographist (talk) 18:02, 9 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Interim thoughts. Firstly, I remain unconvinced by the "complaints" argument. Rather, they appear to me as people saying, "I haven't seen this before, therefore I don't like it". Like anything new, it is possible to get used to it, and maybe eventually appreciate its advantages. Secondly, it is possible to make some changes that will likely reduce the objections. One is to drastically reduce, or even eliminate the citations in the lead. Per WP:LEAD, citations are not needed in the lead, provided the lead is merely summarising the contents of the article, and that content is itself properly sourced. Try to keep parenthetical citations to the end of paragraphs, where they can enhance (rather than reduce) the readability of the text. Failing that, try to keep parenthetical citations to the end of sentences. The present version of the article mostly does this already, with the important exception of the lead. Sentences of the form "(Smith 2009:23) found that ..." (and variants where the parenthetical citation isn't necessarily at the start) are also perfectly readable and understandable. Recently I've been editing more articles on mathematical topics, an area where parenthetical referencing is more common. I find myself coming round to the view that parenthetical referencing is an underused and underrated citation style. I've yet to give your proposals more thought. Will update here when I have done so. --NSH001 (talk) 17:13, 11 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I agree that your suggestions above would work instead of shortened footnotes: drastically reduce, or even eliminate the citations in the lead and try to keep parenthetical citations to the end of sentences. Biogeographist (talk) 21:36, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The principle is simpler (in principle): Use parentheticals IFF they are part of the textual information. Examples: Smith and Jones (1957: 219) introduced the notion that... Rossi (1959) responded to Smith and Jones (1957:219)... Most have accepted that "parenthetical reference can be informative" (Smith and Jones 1957:219)... Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 16:37, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Of course I strongly oppose, but the community came to a consensus. Not the one I would have wished, but so be it. -- Avi (talk) 04:35, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I am deeply opposed to removing shortened footnotes, for the record. I think the alphabetical layout of the citations is orderly and efficient, and at least shortened footnotes allows that to continue. Moreover, it keeps all the references at the bottom of the article instead of interspersed in the text. Lastly, it allows the same reference to support multiple pages or sections without duplication. -- Avi (talk) 04:53, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Manual Archiving
It was time :). Adding this section to force auto-TOC ;) -- Avi (talk) 20:17, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Definition of actuary
More food for thought. Nowhere in opening sentences do we define actuary as someone who works with insurance products, instead we just say risk and uncertainty. Has there been any discussion/consensus on bringing insurance into the definition? Just because other types of professionals like quants are also dealing with quantifying risk and uncertainty, and it might be good to distinguish. -KaJunl (talk) 04:10, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Because restricting it to insurance is incorrect. While most actuarial analysis of risk happens in the context of insurance, which is clear from the second section (responsibilities), there are plenty of actuaries working outside of insurance as well. -- Avi (talk) 00:55, 11 January 2021 (UTC)