The U.S. Department of Labor predicts that employment for actuaries will grow much faster than the average for all occupations through 2028. The insurance industry—the leading employer of actuaries—is expected to experience growth, with many new fields such as annuities, climate change risk analysis, and terrorism-related property-risk analysis, compensating for the shrinking life insurance industry.

The insurance industry continues to evolve, and actuaries will be in demand to establish rates in several new areas of coverage, including prepaid legal, dental, and kidnapping insurance. In many cases, actuarial data that have been supplied by rating bureaus are now being developed in new actuarial departments created in companies affected by states' new competitive rating laws. Other new areas of insurance coverage that will involve actuaries include product and pollution liability insurance as well as greater workers' compensation and medical malpractice coverage. Insurers will call on actuaries to help them respond to new state and federal regulations while cutting costs, especially in the areas of pension reform and no-fault automobile insurance. In the future, actuaries will also be employed by noninsurance businesses or will work in business- and investment-related fields. Some are already working in banking and finance.

Actuaries will be needed to assess the financial impact of issues such as AIDS, terrorism, and the changing health care system (especially issues related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). As demographics change, people live and work longer, and as medicine advances, actuaries will need to reexamine the probabilities of death, sickness, and retirement.

Casualty actuaries will find more work as companies find themselves held responsible for product liability. In the wake of environmental disasters, such as the massive BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, there will also be a growing need to evaluate environmental risk.

Opportunities will be best for those in the consulting industry as companies continue to outsource their risk analysis needs. Opportunities should also be strong for consulting actuaries who evaluate health care plans for companies and other employers and for those who assess risks across all areas of business (a practice known as enterprise risk management). As business goes global, it presents a whole new set of risks and problems as economies develop and new markets emerge.

Actuaries are no longer just mathematical experts. With their unique combination of analytical and business skills, their role is expanding as they become broad-based business professionals solving social as well as financial problems.

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