actuary-career-blind-spot

Over the past years, I’ve had the fortune to collaborate with carrier CEOs, chief distribution officers, and senior leaders across finance, and insurance BUs. What surprised me most is how many of them came from actuarial backgrounds. It always made for a good conversation starter, but it also made me ask a simple question: how did they get there?

Before answering that, let me share a piece of my own journey. I followed the standard actuarial path. Life track. Exam grind. Rotations. Financial reporting. Like many, I thought the trajectory was straightforward and linear. Keep passing exams, understand the financial engine, and the career would work itself out. The stability is real, and it’s one of the profession’s biggest selling points, especially for career changers.

But what rarely gets talked about is the path that takes you beyond actuarial work. The path that puts you on a bigger stage. The path you need to take if you want to influence and impact how this industry actually evolves. And that path usually requires leaving the comfort zone.

In 2020, I did exactly that. I raised venture funding, left a stable actuarial career as a FSA, and co-founded an insurtech. I moved straight into distribution and thought I understood life insurance. I did not. Not even close. I learned the hard way. We built, raised multiple rounds, partnered with great organizations, served customers across channels, and ultimately wound most of the business down. The full story is for another post.

The punchline is this: once I got licensed, sat in real sales conversations, partnered with field leaders, and talked directly to customers, I realized something humbling. I had spent years pricing products, calculating reserves, and designing features without ever hearing what a real customer actually cares about. In the startup world, I knew too damn well that “getting close to the customer” mattered for product market fit, but I had absolutely zero real customer exposure.

And I’m not alone. Almost every actuary I’ve spoken to shares the same blind spot.

We are exceptional at managing risk and profitability. But if customers don’t understand the product, don’t see the value, or don’t want it, the math doesn’t matter. Our industry keeps trying to sell a product that hasn’t structurally changed in decades, built around a benefit that isn’t tangible, with a message that doesn’t cut through in a world where attention is scarce.

No wonder distributors capture most of the margin and are having an upper hand. No wonder product economics keeps getting squeezed. No wonder new consumers rarely show up. Faster underwriting and fancier crediting methods won’t fix that. Between 2015 and 2022, over 1.2 billion dollars of venture capital was burned in life-insurtech because innovators were too far away from real consumers.

After learning that lesson the painful way, I committed to getting closer to the people we’re supposed to serve. Over the following years, I spoke with hundreds of prospects and sold a handful of policies myself. That experience made one thing crystal clear: the life insurance value chain is way too fragmented, and the only way to fix it is through hands-on cross-functional experience and expertise. Not just alignment. Actual understanding.

And actuaries are uniquely positioned to lead that shift. We start from the most complex, quant-heavy end of the business. With even a little exposure to underwriting, distribution, and real customer convos, the perspective changes instantly. Many of the industry leaders I admire took that detour. They stepped out, explored, learned, and built muscles outside the traditional actuarial track.

This path is not for everyone. But if you’re even slightly curious, talk to underwriters. Sit with distribution teams. Listen to field offices. And yes, get the producer license. It’s a simple exam for an actuary. What it gives you is something the profession rarely teaches: a direct line to the customer.

That’s where the magic happens.

If this resonates, or if you have thoughts or questions, feel free to reach out.