Do you need an internship to become an actuary?

No, you do not need an internship to become an actuary. You will only need to pass a series of rigorous exams. Completing an internship can help in your journey to becoming an actuary, though it is not required. Actuarial interns might be offered full-time positions at the completion of their internship. At the very least, completing an actuarial internship will give you relevant professional experience in the field.

What is the highest-paid actuary?

The highest-paid actuary works in casualty insurance. The average salary for a casualty insurance actuary is $556,000 a year. Following in close second are actuaries in life insurance, which average $528,000 a year. Health insurance actuaries average $423,000 a year, and pension actuaries make approximately $364,000 a year.

How To Become An Actuarial Internship: What It Is and Career Path

What is an actuarial internship and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Actuarial work aims to assess the probability of future events using mathematical calculations. If you want to become an actuarial professional in the future, you may have to go through an actuarial internship to increase your chances of job placement.

As an actuarial intern, your duties will mostly revolve around entry-level tasks, such as handling correspondences (phone calls, emails, SMS, etc.), preparing presentations, performing data entry tasks, and extracting data from systems. You may also be expected to assist with calculations or observe and document the process.

If you want to pursue an actuarial internship, you must have a degree in a relevant field (usually a mathematics-related degree) or be in your third year of college of said degree. Apart from a good educational background, it also helps to display great skills in communication, time management, administrative work, and trainability to qualify for some of the best employers.

ScoreActuarial InternshipUS Average

Salary

7.1

Avg. Salary $90,428

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.6

Growth rate 21%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

2.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.00%

Asian 24.49%

Black or African American 2.94%

Hispanic or Latino 3.65%

Unknown 2.92%

White 66.00%

Gender

female 38.68%

male 61.32%

Age - 37

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 37

Stress level

6.6

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.7

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

5.8

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an actuarial internship

Explore actuarial internship education requirements

Most common actuarial internship degrees

Bachelor's

78.3 %

Master's

15.2 %

Associate

2.7 %

Start to develop specific actuarial internship skills

Skills	Percentages
Competitive Analysis	11.96%
Analyze Data	10.44%
VBA	8.01%
SQL	6.16%
PowerPoint	5.63%

Complete relevant actuarial internship training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 4-10 years on post-employment, on-the-job training. New actuarial interns learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an actuarial internship based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real actuarial internship resumes.

Research actuarial internship duties and responsibilities

Evaluate capitation agreements between provider groups and manage care plans, including commercial and Medicare populations.
Prepare in-force reports to build statutory, tax and GAAP reserves.
Assist developing model for individual life, annuities and retirement plans.
Test projection output for PolySystems by performing cashflow spot checking and ALM output comparisons.

Prepare your actuarial internship resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your actuarial internship resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an actuarial internship resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable actuarial internship resume templates

Build a professional actuarial internship resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your actuarial internship resume.