CAS Profile: Mindy Moss, FCAS

Mindy Moss, FCAS, is a Manage Actuary at Allstate Insurance and an active member of the CAS. Currently, she serves on both the Candidate Advocate Working Group and the Admissions Governance Council.

Where do you work and what is your position?

I work as a Managing Actuary at Allstate Insurance. My team focuses heavily on technology – ensuring that Pricing and Modeling can do their work effectively and efficiently. In other words, I get to code all the time, which I love!

Where did you attend college?

Binghamton University.

Why did you decide to become an actuary?

After changing my major for the third time (and still not being happy with where I landed), I decided to take a few years off. During my time away from school, I realized two important things: 1) I wanted a steady, reliable job, and 2) I love math. My husband was the person to tell me about Actuarial Science, and it seemed to fit!

What aspects of the field do you love?

I love the wide breadth of opportunities available for actuaries. I’ve held traditional pricing roles, modeling roles, and even worked in Dynamic Financial Analysis for a short time! Now I’m in a highly technical actuarial role. The actuarial field has something for everyone – whether you’re interested in presenting to the business or working on complex models.

What is the best career advice you have ever received?

Coming into my tenth year of working full-time as an actuary, I’ve received a plethora of career advice. And honestly, different nuggets of advice have served me at varying times. For example, as a new analyst, the best piece of advice I received was  “heads-down, focus on exams.” This allowed me to prioritize my study hours without feeling guilty.

During COVID, the best piece of advice I heard was “it’s just insurance.” This allowed me to focus on my family when I needed to (while still getting my work done, but not overly stressing about it).

Currently, my favorite piece of career advice is to “define your personal brand, or others will.” I’ve worked the last few years on crafting my personal brand and making sure I’m living into it. This is almost certainly how I’m in my technical role now, and it helps me stay focused on what’s important to me.

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?

Try new things! If your employer has a rotational program, take advantage of that to work in as many areas as possible. If you don’t have the opportunity to rotate, try new approaches to problems or have a side passion project. You’ll probably find some work that you never want to do again, but you may also find something that you love.

Why would you recommend a career in the P&C insurance industry to current college students?

In my opinion, there are two major pros of working in the P&C insurance industry as an actuary: 1) We are always innovating. This allows you to try new things at work (and there’s never a dull moment). 2) Actuaries are very highly regarded in P&C. Since actuaries are insurance experts, I’ve seen them go on to become State Managers, Product Managers, EVPs, and even CEOs.

What can students do now to prepare for a career in the industry?

Aside from the obvious “take an exam or two” advice, I highly recommend that students take at least one programming class (I honestly wish I had double majored in Computer Science & Actuarial Science). Even if it’s a class for a language you may not use at work, the fundamentals of programming remain the same. In addition, if you can find some basic introductions to insurance principles, that will give you a huge advantage when you start working full-time. College will teach you the math, but not all schools teach the fundamentals of insurance.