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path: /students/how-to-become-pc-actuary
title: "How to become a property & casualty actuary"
description: "How to become a property & casualty actuary: the CAS exam path from Exam P and FM through MAS-I/II, Exams 5–9, VEE, and the ACAS and FCAS designations."
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# How to become a property & casualty actuary

Becoming a credentialed P&C actuary means passing a series of exams administered by the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) and completing its supporting requirements, leading to the Associate (ACAS) and Fellow (FCAS) designations. Here is the path.

## The path at a glance

- Preliminary exams: Exam P (Probability) and Exam FM (Financial Mathematics), administered by the SOA and accepted by the CAS.
- Validation by Educational Experience (VEE): Economics and Accounting & Finance, usually met by college coursework.
- Modern Actuarial Statistics: MAS-I and MAS-II, plus the Data and Insurance Series Courses (DISCs).
- ACAS exams: Exam 5 (Basic Ratemaking & Reserving) and Exam 6 (Regulation & Financial Reporting), plus Property & Casualty Predictive Analytics (PCPA) and the Course on Professionalism.
- FCAS exams: Exam 7 (Advanced Estimation of Claims Liabilities & ERM), Exam 8 (Advanced Ratemaking), and Exam 9 (Financial Risk & Rate of Return).

## How long it takes

Most candidates take several years and invest a few hundred hours of study per upper-level exam, fitting exams around full-time work. The preliminary exams are multiple choice and math-focused; the upper-level exams (5–9) are broader and more open-ended.

## Why now is a strong time to enter

Demand for credentialed P&C actuaries is high, the workforce skews toward retirement, and AI is removing grunt work rather than the judgment the credential certifies. The next cohort will own more of the rate plan, earlier.