Actuarial Sciences

You can insure for your car, your home, your health or, even, your life. By buying an insurance policy, your individual risks are shared collectively amongst a larger pool of policy holders. The task of an actuary is to assess and communicate these individual and collective risks. Actuarial Science provides the mathematical backbone for this job. Actuarial Science draws on a wide range of mathematical tools from probability, statistics, optimisation and economics.

The last few decades have seen significant changes in Actuarial Science. Models of insurance risk are increasingly standardised by regulators; However, a model where risk is collectively pooled is challenged by a world where individual information is increasingly refined and financial markets are subject to systemic risks. This presents growing challenge for actuaries. This has spurred the increasing adoption of advanced mathematical techniques.

In addition to our taught programmes offered at undergraduate and masters level, there is increasing research activity in Actuarial Science within the School. This is mainly driven by Ronnie Loeffen, Kees van Schaik, Neil Walton and Alex Watson. Some particular topics of interest concern applications of queueing theory to ruin problems, Levy insurance risk processes, competition modelling, and optimal stopping and prediction problems in insurance.

Academic contact

Dr Kees van Schaik, Tel: +44 (0)161 275 5853, E-mail: kees.vanschaik@manchester.ac.uk