Actuarial Intern

Actuarial Intern career guide explores pricing analysis, actuarial modeling, and reserving to understand job requirements and career path.

Actuarial Intern career guide explores pricing analysis, actuarial modeling, and reserving to understand job requirements and career path.

An Actuarial Intern is a student professional who supports the quantitative work that turns raw insurance and financial data into the pricing decisions and reserve estimates that carriers and regulators depend on. Day to day, the role involves running loss development analyses, preparing state rate filings, validating large datasets, and building pricing and profitability reports alongside a credentialed actuarial team. Based on Lamwork's research across Actuarial Intern job data, this internship is one of the few early-career positions that places students directly inside live business deliverables on the CAS or SOA exam track, giving them exposure that coursework alone cannot replicate.

• Analyze loss development factors and exposure trends to support quarterly and annual reserve estimates for assigned lines of business.
• Build pricing and profitability metrics reports for senior management, covering personal and commercial insurance products.
• Prepare state rate filings in response to product revisions and regulatory requirements, ensuring submissions meet compliance standards.
• Perform data validation and integrity testing across large datasets to confirm that actuarial outputs are accurate before submission.
• Support peer company research and rate making studies by applying current actuarial methodologies to inform pricing assumptions and rate indications.

Lamwork's review of Actuarial Intern postings shows that quantitative technical skills and cross-functional communication ability consistently appear as the threshold requirements for competitive candidates.

• Hard
  
  Skills:
  
  Actuarial Modeling, Excel Automation (including VBA macros), SQL Database Querying, R or Python Programming, Loss Reserve Analysis
• Soft Skills:
  
  Analytical Thinking, Attention to Detail, Stakeholder Communication, Time Management, Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Actuarial Intern
• Actuarial Analyst
• Senior Actuarial Analyst
• Actuarial Manager or Associate Actuary

Reaching the Senior Actuarial Analyst level typically takes five to eight years, depending on the pace of exam completion and the breadth of project exposure. Exam progress - moving through the CAS or SOA credentialing sequence - is the single largest driver of advancement, alongside demonstrated proficiency in independent reserving or pricing assignments.

• Casualty Actuarial Society Exam 1 (CAS Exam
  1) – foundational credential showing quantitative readiness for P&C roles
• Society of Actuaries Exam P (SOA Exam P) – probability exam validating core analytical preparation for SOA-track roles
• Society of Actuaries Exam FM (SOA Exam FM) – financial mathematics exam demonstrating pricing and valuation aptitude
• VEE Economics (VEE Econ) – validates applied economics knowledge required for both CAS and SOA credentialing paths

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track Actuarial Intern as a separate occupation. Based on the closest related role, Actuaries, the median annual salary is $125,770 per year, according to the most recent available data.

Top-paying cities for actuaries, based on the most recent BLS data:

• New York, NY – above national median
• Hartford, CT – above national median
• Chicago, IL – above national median

Note:

City-level intern-specific wage breakdowns are not separately reported by the BLS for this occupation group. Pay for an Actuarial Intern moves most meaningfully with exam progress; each passed CAS or SOA exam is typically recognized with a salary adjustment, as well as with whether the position sits within a large P&C carrier versus a consulting firm or benefits shop.