How much maths do actuaries use in their everyday work?

I can give you my perspective as an Actuary working for a major group healthcare insurance provider. As the others who have posted here have said, my experience is not necessarily representative of what you will see in other lines of insurance. read more

Its more accurate to say that actuaries need to apply their Math skills to make sense of the various numbers in the spreadsheet, data and statistics to solve a particular problem. The actuarial work is definitely numerical based. read more

The math most actuaries use is certainly way more than most people will ever encounter but it’s not what real mathematicians would call math. You learn the basic math behind the work as part of your training but that’s to understand the tools in common use, mostly established formulas, computer programs, and methods required by the various governing bodies. read more

Some actuaries don't use much beyond basic algebra. Some use stochastic differential equations, generalized linear modeling, advanced statistical methods, you name it. You also have to remember that "higher math" your referring to often doesn't deal explicitly with more messy statistics. read more