Keeping score was The Soul of Barb's New Machine was creat 1128

Actuary is indeed one of the most harrowing educations you can take. You start out with a relevant degree (Msc Economics or similar) and take on maths, statistics and a weird mix of macro- and microeconomics from there in.

They are the ones that actually buttign monetary value to the claims, premiums and latent obligations of an insurance company. They have to follow a very strict set of guidelines to do this; and use published tables of prbabilities for this. I have been somewhat involved in making the statistics to underpin changes in these tables, so I have first hand knowledge that these are viewed extremelty strictly. There is a long trail of verifiability here.

An insurance company views this pot of revenue and latent claims as a portfolio; which it is. They analyse it thoroughly for any imbalance; e.g. expected cash outlay in 2009 when the clbutt of 1968 plus 1 they had record life policy sates to retire. They will "rebalance" the portfolio by making investments etc in the markets. They may reinsure, buy shares, bonds etc.

They are strictly regulated as to what instruments they can buy; mostly based on ratings. A huge amount of money ride on these ratings and valuations; so it is extremely important you follow the book.

I knew the analyst that downgraded Norsk Data below BA+ (the critical point for insurance investments in shares). From the day she announced the downgrade to bankrupcy took less than 7 months. She followed the book exactly, and was promoted for it.

So, yes, all insurance companies look a lot alike, because they have to use the same, verifiable, valuations on their portfolios. They can differ a lot on what these portfolios are; but they will be pushed into having very similar offerings.

One tidbit here is that there aer groups of people that are valued much more highly in the tables; because they have a lot lower risk. Teetotalists and people with higher education are two large examples. They cannot, however, make a product requiring you not to drink, or accessible only with a degree.

But they are free to offer rebates to members of asociations of teetotalists and professional buttociations. They can give large rebates there, and still have a portfolio that comes out ahead.

This portfolio has valuation, and this is important to the stock market. And it all hangs in actuarial tables that are updated once every generation. The international section on risk for sports divers was not updated between 1960 and 1997; and the risks changed dramatically in the period.

-- mrr