Professionalism Counts, November 2025
The end of the year is fast approaching, and actuaries are making sure they’ve completed their continuing education (CE) requirements for the year. The Qualification Standards for Actuaries Issuing Statements of Actuarial Opinion in the United States (USQS) require actuaries to earn 30 hours of relevant CE each year. Of the 30 hours, at least 6 must be earned in an organized fashion, 3 must be on professionalism topics, and 1 on bias topics. Understanding these terms is key to meeting the requirements.
Relevant CE
First, not just any CE offering may count toward your annual total—CE must be relevant to your work. How do you know if a particular offering is relevant? If it meets one of these four conditions, you may consider it relevant:
- broadens or deepens your understanding of one or more aspects of your work;
- exposes you to new and evolving techniques for addressing actuarial issues;
- expands your knowledge of practice in related disciplines that bear directly on your work; or
- facilitates your entry into a new area of actuarial practice.
Ultimately, it is up to you, the actuary, to make a reasonable, good-faith determination of what CE opportunities are relevant to your work.
Organized Activities CE
The key to determining whether an activity is “organized” is whether it provides the opportunity to interact with actuaries or other professionals working for different organizations. Organized activities may include conferences, seminars, live webinars, in-person or online courses, or committee work that is directly relevant to the area of actuarial practice of the subject of the statement of actuarial opinion (SAO). If you haven’t quite earned the full 6 hours of organized CE yet this year, the Academy has several webinars planned for December.
Professionalism Topics CE
Professionalism topics are those related to the Code of Professional Conduct, actuarial standards of practice (ASOPs), and related actuarial professionalism guidance. You can earn professionalism CE through activities such as studying, reviewing, or providing input on an exposure draft of an ASOP; studying or reviewing the Code; attending an actuarial professionalism webinar; and serving on the Actuarial Standards Board or a professionalism committee. If you are a little short of professionalism CE, our last professionalism webinar of the year, the ever-popular Tales from the Dark Side will take place on Dec. 19, showcasing examples of requests for guidance and complaints based on matters that have come before the Actuarial Board for Counseling and Discipline.
Bias Topics CE
The last time the USQS were revised, a requirement of 1 hour of bias CE was introduced. Bias CE includes content that provides knowledge and perspective that assist in identifying and assessing biases that may exist in data, assumptions, algorithms, and models that impact actuarial services. Biases may include but are not limited to statistical, cognitive, and social biases. The upcoming Dec. 5 webinar, Identifying and Managing Bias in AI, is intended to satisfy this requirement. Two other recent Academy products may also qualify for bias CE (if they are relevant to your work): Measuring Statistical Bias in Data Using Entropy and Governance Checklist, Related to Testing Life Insurance Underwriting for Unfairly Discriminatory Practices.
CE for NAIC Opinions
Those of you signing one of the three NAIC Opinions listed in section 3 of the USQS (commonly known as blue blank, orange blank, and yellow blank) must earn 15 hours directly related to the opinion you are signing. At least 6 of those 15 hours must involve interaction with outside actuaries or other professionals, such as seminars, in-person or online courses, or committee work that is directly relevant to the topics identified in section 3.1.1 of the USQS. The 15 hours may be included in the 30 hours required for the year. Also providing such CE were this month’s annual Life and Health Qualifications Seminar, and December’s Seminar on Effective P/C Loss Reserve Opinions.
Recordkeeping CE
It is a good idea to keep records of your CE as you earn it, especially as the USQS requires you to keep records for six years. The Academy provides a helpful tool in this regard—Academy Learning, which allows Academy members to track their earned CE hours, whether earned through Academy programming and publications, or through other organizations. Instructions on using the new platform may be found here.
TRACE retired: Please note, for those who recorded their CE in TRACE—your records are being transferred to Academy Learning, as TRACE has been retired and is no longer accessible.