Professionalism Counts, October 2025
The Applicability Guidelines—a useful resource that can help actuaries determine which actuarial standards of practice (ASOPs) might apply to an assignment—has been updated for new and revised ASOPs that have been recently adopted by the Actuarial Standards Board (ASB).
The Applicability Guidelines are published by the Academy’s Council on Professionalism and Education with assistance from the casualty, health, life, retirement, and risk management and financial reporting practice councils. As the Applicability Guidelines are not standards of practice published by the ASB, they are not authoritative and are not binding guidance. As such, you are not required to follow them. Nevertheless, they can be helpful in determining which ASOPs might apply to an assignment.
Easy to use, the Applicability Guidelines are in a downloadable Excel spreadsheet, with a tab for each practice area. At the top of each tab is a reminder that three ASOPs apply to all actuarial assignments: ASOP No. 1, Introductory Standard of Practice; No. 23, Data Quality; and No. 41, Actuarial Communications. Below that, each tab lists actuarial tasks that are common to that practice area and which ASOPs might apply to that task. For example, if you were a property/casualty actuary creating or reviewing a risk classification plan, you could look at task 6.1 and see that ASOP Nos. 12, 13, 25, 38, 39, 53, and 56 might apply.
Each ASOP column includes a link so that you can easily go to the ASOP and determine whether it applies to the task at hand. Ultimately, it is your responsibility to determine which ASOPs apply to an assignment.
If you are performing an assignment that touches on more than one practice area, you may find it helpful to review the tabs for all the relevant practice areas. For example, if you are a life actuary performing an appraisal of a life company writing health coverages, you may wish to review the health tab as well as the life tab.
When the ASB adopts a new or revised ASOP, the relevant practice council reviews the ASOP and the types of assignments to which it applies and then determines whether the existing Applicability Guidelines should be updated. Earlier this year, the new ASOP No. 58, Enterprise Risk Management, which applies to all practice areas, took effect, replacing the two previous risk management ASOPs.
Because it applies to all practice areas, all four practice-area tabs have been updated.
In addition, the Applicability Guidelines have been updated for several practice-area ASOPs that have been revised in recent years, including the following:
Life
ASOP No. 10, U.S. GAAP for Long-Duration Life, Annuity, and Health Products
ASOP No. 18, Long-Term Care
ASOP No. 24, NAIC Life Insurance Illustrations Model Regulation
ASOP No. 40, Compliance with the NAIC Valuation of Life Insurance Policies Model Regulation with Respect to X Factors
Health
ASOP No. 18, Long-Term Care
Pension
ASOP No. 27, Selection of Assumptions for Measuring Pension Obligations
Precept 3 of the Code of Professional Conduct requires actuaries to “observe applicable standards of practice … and to keep current regarding changes in those standards.” We encourage you to use this valuable resource, available to all actuaries on the Academy website, to help you meet this requirement.
As always, it is ultimately the responsibility of you, the actuary, to determine which ASOPs apply.