Typical Day
Annie the actuary awakens at 7:24AM (she likes to set her alarm for unusual times so all of the numbers in her clock get a fair shake), showers, dresses, breakfasts, and is out the door by 8:11AM. She gets into the office at 8:28AM, early enough to grab a coffee (regular, black) before starting her day.
She works in an insurance office, and her first task of the morning is to look into the risk associated with Chase Haverford, the heir to the Haverford lavatory empire. Potentially, he's a high-profile client. Then again, his personal history isn't quite as impressive as his pedigree. After one glance at his record, it doesn't take an actuary to realize he's a huge risk behind the wheel.
Annie goes over pages and pages of data comparing Chase to drivers with similar tendencies, others who are in a common age bracket, and others who have a history of prior offenses. She runs a few formulas based on the data and begins preparing a packet.
Pricing the deal is hard, and it takes multiple formulas to figure out what premium amount would be enough to cover both the best-case and worst-case scenarios in the grand scheme of all that can go wrong. She then begins making adjustments based on the risk factors (the history of accidents, the driver's age, etc.).
Just before lunch she concludes her statistical research and reports back to the chief financial officer of the insurance company. She details her calculation of the premium, going deep into the numbers to show how she arrived at that amount.
The CFO asks some questions, but more or less trusts Annie's assessment of the situation and her recommendation for the premium. After all, the company isn't paying her to sit and crunch numbers all day just so they can overrule her at the last second to go with their gut.
After lunch, Annie's given a new challenge: Nick Burch, an existing client, is planning to throw his daughter an elaborate bat mitzvah in four months' time. There will be circus clowns, ponies, magicians, and kittens—all the things she liked as a little girl, so she can have one last fling with fantasy before growing up.
The insurance company is being asked to provide special event insurance for this bash, so Annie needs to take a number of things into consideration before determining what an appropriate premium would be.
First of all, the bat mitzvah is going to be outside in the client's massive backyard—what is the weather going to be like at that time of year? She goes through almanacs and looks at historical temperatures in that region, determining the likelihood it'll rain, snow, or hail frogs.
Are there any animals that are going to be at this freak show that could be dangerous? What happens if a guest is bitten or clawed by one of them—how much could that potentially cost the client or the company? What if one of the animals themselves is injured? And suppose one of the animals injures one of those cheesy clowns—will anyone care?
Once all the data has been collected and analyzed, Annie again reports her findings to the account manager, who thanks her for her input and begins putting together the policy.
At 5:43PM, Annie grabs her things and is out the door in a hurry—her husband had asked if she could make it home by 6:00PM this evening. Curse him and his even numbers.