by Conrad Daley FSA, MAAA

I’m a Fellow with the Society of Actuaries which means I have passed rigorous exams over 6 years after college on complex mathematical concepts. I currently work as a consulting actuary at a firm based in Seattle, though I’ve been fully remote since the start of COVID.

I live in Utah and only go into the office twice a year for performance and a company retreat done once a year. I currently have eight years of experience and work primarily in health insurance, with a focus on ACA marketplace pricing. The ACA is the Affordable Care Act, formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and informally as Obamacare.

I plan to walk through a typical day in my life as a remote consulting actuary. This isn’t meant to represent every actuary’s experience, but rather what a normal workday looks like for me.

On a typical day, I wake up around 7:30 a.m., depending on if I stayed up late watching TV, I may start closer to 9:00 a.m. My morning routine is simple, I drink a large glass of water, have a cup of cold brew coffee, and then head straight to my desk.

I live in a one-bedroom apartment, and my workspace is set up in my living room. I have my laptop against the wall in a large open area, which works well for a permanent work-from-home setup.

Once I log on, the first thing I do is check email and Microsoft Teams messages. After that, I open my timesheet, which is a major part of consulting life.

In consulting, you track your time in 15-minute increments as either billable or non-billable. Each block of time is assigned a specific client or internal code, depending on what you’re working on.

You don’t need to enter a new code for every single 15-minute block if you’re working on the same project. For example, if I start a client project at 8:00 a.m. and work on it until 11:00 a.m., I’ll use the same code for that entire stretch, then switch to a lunch code.

Timesheets are submitted monthly and are used to calculate total billable hours across clients. Those billable hours directly impact year-end bonuses, so accuracy matters.

Timesheets also can be used to track continuing education hours. As a credentialed actuary, I’m required to complete and attest to ongoing education each year.

In addition, I pay annual membership dues to professional organizations like the Society of Actuaries and the American Academy of Actuaries. The dues are about $750 per year, which I pay upfront and then get reimbursed by my firm.

Each year, actuaries must attest that they’re compliant with continuing education requirements. I personally follow the U.S. Qualification Standards (USQS), which includes basic education, responsible actuarial experience, and continuing education.

Continuing education is broken into categories such as organized activities, professionalism, and bias training. For example, organized activities might include conferences or live webinars, while professionalism often involves studying actuarial standards or codes of conduct.

This topic could easily be its own post, so I won’t go too deep here, but I’ll include links to the general requirements for anyone who’s interested.

After getting settled, I open my OneNote to-do list. At the beginning of each week, I map out the days and list specific projects along with their deadlines.

Today is Wednesday the 31st, and I have a fee-for-service development workbook that needs to be reviewed. It’s due Friday, so I plan to start reviewing it today and finish by early Friday.

I also have timesheet submission coming up, and tomorrow is a holiday. Since this isn’t busy season, I’m only juggling one or two major tasks today.

During busy season, my workload looks very different. I’ll often have three or four active projects in a single day, with tighter deadlines and less flexibility.

For ACA pricing work, busy season usually ramps up in January and continues until rates are submitted to the state (usually July). During those months, my days are more structured, and there’s usually work lined up continuously from morning through the afternoon.

Right now, things are relatively calm, which makes days like today more manageable.

I usually work straight through the morning without taking short breaks. Lunch is when I eat what’s technically my breakfast.

I almost always eat at home and keep meals simple. Most days, that’s a tortilla wrap with four eggs and spinach.

I’ll continue working until I finish my tasks or hit around 7.5 to 8 hours for the day. Once I’m done, I log off and head off to the gym and that’s a pretty typical day in my life as a remote consulting actuary.