Returning to Actuarial Practice 

Professionalism Counts, April 2025

Several times each year, the Academy receives questions from actuaries returning to actuarial work after some time away from the profession. Whether they’ve taken time off to care for family members or themselves, or have taken a non-actuarial job, they all want to know what they need to do to return to actuarial work while abiding by the Code of Professional Conduct. 

The Code requires actuaries to perform actuarial services only when they are qualified to do so on the basis of basic and continuing education and experience, and only when they satisfy applicable qualification standards. In the U.S., the applicable qualification standards are the Qualification Standards for Actuaries Issuing Statements of Actuarial Opinion in the United States (U.S. Qualification Standards, or USQS). 

The Committee on Qualifications issues FAQs on the U.S. Qualification Standards. In its most recent FAQ, on returning to actuarial work, the committee wrote: 

• Under the U.S. Qualification Standards (USQS), the actuary would have to fulfill continuing education (CE) requirements—including 6 hours of organized activity CE, 3 hours of professionalism CE, and 1 hour of bias CE—for the year in which the actuary returns to work before issuing a statement of actuarial opinion (SAO) as defined in section 1 of the USQS. In the years in which the actuary does not issue any SAOs, the actuary would not be required to fulfill the USQS CE requirements. 

The committee goes on to say that actuaries planning to sign NAIC opinions “must also complete 15 credits per calendar year of CE that is directly relevant to the topics listed in section 3.3 of the USQS for the opinion they intend to sign. The 15 credits of specific CE may be counted toward the 30 credits required under section 2 of the USQS.” 

The above covers the last part of Precept 2—satisfying the applicable qualification standards. But there is more to being qualified than just fulfilling the last year’s CE requirements, which is necessary but may not be sufficient. As noted above, the actuary may perform actuarial services only when they are qualified to do so. If an actuary has been away from actuarial work for some time, simply fulfilling the last year’s CE requirement may not be enough to bring them up to speed. Their level of knowledge and skill must be truly up to date for the work they intend to perform. To address this “look-in-the-mirror” aspect of Precept 2, the Committee on Qualifications wrote … because Precept 2 of the Code of Professional Conduct obligates actuaries to use their professional judgment when assessing whether they are qualified to perform a particular actuarial service, before returning to work, an actuary should take into account how long they have been away from actuarial work and consider whether they need more than 30 hours of CE to be truly qualified for the work they intend to do. 

The FAQs on the USQS are provided to assist practicing actuaries in navigating U.S. qualification requirements. Actuaries with qualification questions are strongly encouraged to review the FAQs, which cover a wide range of questions. Actuaries whose questions are not answered by the FAQs may contact the Committee on Qualifications.