Insurance Agents vs. Actuaries

Who Really Knows Anything?

Let’s get one thing straight: Selling insurance doesn’t require genius. In most states, you can get your license after a weekend crash course and a multiple-choice exam. That’s not a joke. Some agents are out there selling life-altering contracts with less formal training than your neighborhood gym instructor.

Now contrast that with an actuary.

Actuaries are the brains behind the curtain. They spend years grinding through brutal exams—often taking a decade or more just to be certified. They don’t guess. They calculate. Mortality and Morbidity tables. Catastrophe probabilities. Complex risk models. If you want someone who actually understands what’s in your policy, it's the actuary. But here’s the twist:

You’ll likely never meet one.

Instead, you’ll get the undertrained front-line salesperson with a quota to hit and a Cancun trip to win (see previous post). They don’t write the rules, they just sell them. And often, they don’t fully understand what they’re selling. But they’ll smile, shake your hand, and promise you “peace of mind.”

Meanwhile, back in the 1800s, Elizur Wright, the father of actuarial science in the U.S., had a different vision. After watching grieving widows get fleeced by shady life insurers who took their husbands’ premiums and disappeared, Wright made it his life’s mission to bring mathematics and morality into the insurance business. He fought for transparency. Regulation. Fair valuation of policies based on actual math; not marketing fluff.

His idea?
That insurance should be based on truth, not trickery.
That people selling policies should be held accountable to the same level of discipline as those who price the risk.

Too bad the industry didn't stick with his plan.

So next time you're pitched a policy, ask yourself:
Am I hearing from the person who understands the risk... or the one who understands how to close?

#inssux #makethempay #actuarytruth