Find out the top 10 core skills you need to master as a health actuary and what hard skills you need to know to succeed in this job.

A Health Actuary is responsible for analyzing all the potential risks, profits, and trends that will affect their employers often in the health insurance, government health services or the medical provider industries. This position advises the companies on issuing policies to consumers that are based on risks, calculated premiums and upcoming changes in health-care costs.

The main primary responsibilities are, informing the employer on incentives and benefits to provide both the new and existing clients, keeping track of the health industry as well as the company's competitors to ensure the rates remain competitive, participating in day to day desk analysis and meetings to share findings with the rest of the department/team, communicating complicated statistical material clearly and concisely.

Core Skills Required to be a Health Actuary

Core skills describe a set of non-technical abilities, knowledge, and understanding that form the basis for successful participation in the workplace. Core skills enable employees to efficiently and professionally navigate the world of work and interact with others, as well as adapt and think critically to solve problems.

Core skills are often tagged onto job descriptions to find or attract employees with specific essential core values that enable the company to remain competitive, build relationships, and improve productivity.

A health actuary should master the following 10 core skills to fulfill her job properly.

Judgment Skills:

Judgment is the ability to make a decision or form an opinion wisely especially in matters affecting action, good sense and discretion.

A Health Actuary must be a person of good judgment with the ability to make the right decision at the right time and for right reasons especially in prioritizing the work correctly to focus on a few important things and ensure excellent results are delivered.

Safety at work:

Safety is being protected from hurt or other non-desirable outcomes that may tend to overrule a situation and cause damages of different kinds.

A Health Actuary must learn to keep the organization safe from different risks by developing a high sense of alertness that detects danger from afar and stops it before it causes risk, danger or injury in the organization.

Motivating others:

Motivating is using persuasion, incentives and mental or physical stimulants to influence the way people think or behave individually or in groups.

A Health Actuary ought to learn how to tap into the employee's enthusiasm as well as motivate the staff not just with money but with a motivation that comes through the daily relationship with each employee and creating an environment that fosters employee engagement and motivation.

Managing at team:

Managing is the administration of an organization which includes activities of setting the strategy of an organization and coordinating the efforts of the employees to accomplish its objectives.

A Health Actuary must learn the art of creating corporate policy, organizing, planning, controlling and directing organization resources to achieve the aims of the policies formed while making decisions to oversee the enterprise.

Leadership Skills:

Leadership Skills are soft skills that assist leaders in positively interacting with employees or team members to make the workplace a great place.

A Health Actuary must be able to lead effectively by learning how to deal with all types of people in a way that motivates, enthuse and build respect in a bid to understand and develop his leadership skills.

Physical Abilities:

Physical Abilities is the ability of one's strengths and limitations that are also known as the individual resources to perform well at the tasks given.

A Health Actuary must understand that his employees are very different types of people who vary in what they can or cannot do and treat each one with respect while supporting them to become the best in what they do.

Self Awareness:

Self Awareness is the ability to have a sound understanding of who you are as a person and how to relate to the world in which you live by understanding your strengths and weaknesses and how to manage them in the workplace.

A Health Actuary must creatively know how to administer the workforce diversity by understanding the culture identity, biases, and stereotypes and become more aware on how he reflects his thoughts, feelings, and behavior towards the staff.

Self Confidence:

Self Confidence is the ability to know who you are and what you are capable of doing which shows in your behavior, your body language, how you speak, etc.

A Health Actuary must be confident enough to inspire confidence in others while encouraging them to handle daily tasks and their personal lives with self-confidence that will, in turn, produce a well-rounded individual.

Personal Relationships:

Personal Relationships is the relationship between individuals who have or have had a continuing relationship of any nature either professional or informal.

A Health Actuary reserves the right to take prompt action if an actual or potential conflict of interest arises concerning individuals who engage in a personal relationship that may affect terms and conditions of employment and he should not also date a subordinate.

Seeing Potential Problems:

Seeing Potential Problems is the ability to structure the current situations and identify developments that could cause problems in the future.

A Health Actuary needs to see potential problems before they occur and work to stop them early enough, he also has to stay ahead of the flow not to be caught you by upcoming issues that could be easily prevented if they were noted soon enough.

Hard Skills Required to be a Health Actuary

Hard skills are job-specific skill sets, or expertise, that are teachable and whose presence can be tested through exams. While core skills are more difficult to quantify and less tangible, hard skills are quantifiable and more defined.

Hard skills are usually listed on an applicant's resume to help recruiters know the applicant's qualifications for the applied position. A recruiter, therefore, needs to review the applicant's resume and education to find out if he/she has the knowledge necessary to get the job done.

A health actuary should have a good command of the following hard skills to succeed in her job.

Health Actuary: Hard skills list

Account Payable
Accounting Principles and Terminology
Actuarial Consulting
Actuarial Modeling
Actuarial Science
Annuities
Analytical
Communication
Consultant
Controller
Cost-benefit Analysis
Data Analysis
Databases
Economics
Economic Capital
Economic Data
Financial
Financial Analysis
Financial Modeling
Financial Risk
Insurance
Life Insurance
Linear Algebra
Mathematical Simulation Models
Microsoft Access
Pensions
Presentations
Pricing Strategy
Problem Solving
Project Management
Programmer
Quantitative Research Methods
Reinsurance
Research
Revenue Forecasts Specialist
Social Data
Social Statistics
Social Trend Awareness
Solvency II
Statistical Analysis
Statistical Data
Statistical Methods
Statistical Modeling
Statistical Surveys
Technical/Technology
Time Management
Verbal Communication
Written Communication

Related Articles