Both Actuary and Economist are the professionals working in the same field, finance. Even though they are in same area, there are lots of dissimilarities in the nature of their work. Actuaries are the experts who evaluate the past and present financial statistics in insurance field and estimate the future risks. Economists are the professionals who study, create and apply the economic theories and make policies using economics.

Actuary Course and Career opportunities

The financial safeguards and requirement for risk assessment are some of the most important functions of insurance firms. The Actuaries are the experts who carry out these tasks. They play a vital role in insurance firms across the world. They can assist the companies to work out the insurance plans and pension packages by evaluating the returns and cost of risk. This is essential to balance the requirements of the company with the possible payoff or risk.

Most of these experts find their employment in insurance industry. These professionals are also called the risk assessment analysts or actuarial analysts. To achieve their targets, the insurance actuaries analyze the given set of data and evaluate the possibility of claims to be filed and how much the firm will be likely to pay out for claims. The results of this evaluation enable the company to properly set premiums so as to maximize profits. Apart from analysis of overall rates of the claims that occur, they also have to look at the frequency of events broken down into subdivisions.

Some of the actuaries work for the businesses which focus on the pension plans. In this area, an actuary will observe the necessities of retirees and try to schedule the best payment choices that meet their requirements. By doing this, these people help the companies in achieving a good risk return trade off.

Economist Course and Career opportunities

Economics is that field of social science which involves the study of demand and supply of products and services. The Economists are the experts who learn, create and apply economic theories and concepts and write about the policies concerned with economics. They usually analyze the economic data and statistics for corporations or government departments and give suggestions about various economic trends. They study about how the resources are distributed all through the society to manufacture goods and services. They organize research, collect and observe data, look at economic trends and make predictions.

The diverse issues which they research about include interest rates, exchange rates, inflation, business cycles, economic conditions of the nation, etc. They also figure out techniques such as sampling techniques and mathematical modeling to collect the required data. Based on the researches conducted, they make charts and tables and present them to their managers or other professionals. Most of the Economists specialize in certain economic related areas like financial economics, microeconomics, international economics, industrial economics, labor economics and macroeconomics. These experts primarily focus on the application of economic policies.

Key differentiators between Actuary and Economist

• Actuary is the expert who assesses the past and present financial statistics of insurance field and predicts the future risks whereas Economist is the professional who learn, create and apply the economic theories and concepts and create policies with the help of economics.

Although Actuary and Economist are the experts working in the same area, they differ in many aspects as mentioned above.