IAI SA3 study guide
IAI SA3 · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
SA3 is a Specialist Application examination in the Institute of Actuaries of India (IAI) actuarial examination system, listed on the IAI site alongside the other Specialist Application papers under the "Actuarial Examination" section. IAI describes itself as "a statutory body established under The Actuaries Act 2006 (35 of 2006) for regulation of profession of Actuaries in India." SA3 is intended for candidates who have completed the earlier stages of the IAI examination pathway and are now applying technical and professional judgement to realistic, specialist-level problems in their chosen practice area. The IAI SA3 study guide has 6 sections and about 2,191 words.
01General Insurance Products, Markets and the Operating Environment
SA3 is the specialist applications paper for general insurance: it takes the technical toolkit - pricing, reserving, reinsurance, capital and risk management - and applies it to the ill-defined business problems actuaries actually face. Questions give you a portfolio, a class of business or a company under stress, and ask what you would do, why, and what could go wrong; marks sit with judgement and quantification, not definitions.
390 words, about 2 min02Pricing and Underwriting for General Insurance
Pricing questions test whether you can build a rate from evidence rather than opinion: estimate the risk cost, add the right expenses, reward the capital used, and explain the uncertainty. Experience (burning cost): losses ÷ exposure, after on-levelling for rate changes and trending for inflation and frequency.
358 words, about 2 min03Reserving and Claims Analysis
Reserving questions ask for a defensible central estimate, a range, and a story about what drives the difference. The examiner wants the method chosen to fit the data, not the data fitted to a familiar method.
371 words, about 2 min04Reinsurance Structure and Rating
Reinsurance questions test structure and pricing at once: what risk are you transferring, what does it cost, and what does it do to the volatility of results and to capital? Proportional: quota share (fixed percentage of premium and losses) and surplus (share of sums insured above a retention).
397 words, about 2 min05Capital, Solvency and Risk Management
Capital questions ask how much capital the business needs, what consumes it, and what can be done about it. You must be able to compute a simple solvency capital requirement and explain its weaknesses.
344 words, about 2 min06Applying Judgement and Communicating Advice
The final skill SA3 rewards is judgement under incomplete information: turning analysis into a recommendation that a board, a regulator or a reinsurer can act on, with the assumptions and the uncertainty visible. Restate the decision the client actually faces - a price, a reserve, a capital plan, a reinsurance purchase.
331 words, about 2 min