TIA’s Exam ILA-DP Blog

If you haven’t seen them already, I wanted to let you know that I have written about 2 dozen practice problems to help with your final exam preparations.  These are all calculation-based problems that are meant to cover many of the topics that could appear on the exam. 

The problems were posted about 2 weeks ago along with the homework problems from the live seminar.

Please keep in mind that the actual exam problems will likely include the calculation questions as part of a larger question.  These are more like the homework problems from the live seminar.

I hope these problems are helpful during the final few weeks before the exam.

Jeremy

Good News!! There’s less for you to remember for the exam.  Actually, the syllabus didn’t change, but there is some information that I included in the online seminar that is not on the syllabus for 2008. 

Section B.2.4 (Valuation of Living and Death Benefit Guarantees for VAs) covers the entire study note, but the syllabus only covers through page 15 of the study note.  Thus, you can ignore all of Session B.2.4.b and the last few lines of Session B.2.4.a.  You can end the session right before I talk about “Grouped vs. Seriatim Data.”  

The section that has been eliminated begins on the middle of page 43 and goes through the end of page 45 on the outline of Section B.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but hopefully it’s good to be able to eliminate something from your study plans!

Jeremy

As we get closer to the Live Seminar (only a little over a week to go), I wanted to give you an idea of what you may want to bring with you to St. Louis.

First of all, please note that the dress is casual.  We want you to be able to learn as effectively as possible, so please feel free to dress comfortably.  The only request is that you don’t wear something that would be distracting to others.

In terms of actual study materials, you will want to bring a printout of the handouts that we will be using in the seminar.  (Hopefully, you’ve already received information about the handouts, but if not it should be coming soon.)  I will be providing several “homework” probelms, so you should also bring a calculator to help with these.

I am often asked about whether students should bring the original source materials.  Some students like to bring their textbooks along so that they can review the source material and ask specific questions.  However, it’s probably not very feasible to bring all of your textbooks (especially with airline restrictions on weight). 

I would probably say that you should only bring a text book if there are specific items that you found confusing or if you want to ask some specific questions about the texts. 

I hope that helps as you begin your final preparations for the Live Seminar in St. Louis.

 Jeremy

I wanted to let you know that the online seminar has now been updated for the 2008 syllabus.  The old sessions have been removed and the new sessions have been added.  As you will see, the new sessions are labeled with “New for 2008″ in the title.

I’ve also been working on some practice problems for each section.  Right now, I’ve started with just the calculation-based problems and will be releasing them over the next several weeks.  At the live seminar, I will share a number of additional problems to work and discuss.  These will be available online after the seminar.

Only 1 month until the live seminar in St. Louis!  Good luck with your continued studying!

Jeremy

I hope the studying is going well for everyone.  Hopefully you’re progressing well through the material and finding the online seminar helpful.

I wanted to post a correction to the online seminar in Session E.2.1.  On the second page of this session, I made a mistake in describing the Brokerage Reps and Brokerage General Agents (under 2.a).

Brokerage Reps recruit for just one company.  Brokerage General Agents recruit for multiples companies.

Sorry for the confusion.  Please let me know if you find any additional errors.

 Jeremy

The calendar just turned to June today and it’s finally starting to feel like summer.  It’s always hard to starting thinking about an exam that seems so far away, but October 30th will be here before you know it.  Thus, it’s probably good to start working on a plan for your studies for Exam ILA-DP.

To help with your preparations, I have created an outline of the syllabus material which will be used for my online seminar (as well as the live seminar).  The outline is very similar to the 2007 version, but I have removed some sections (as mentioned in an earlier post) and have added new sections (shown in bold in the attached file).  I’ve started working on the new sections and hope to have everything updated in the month of June.  I will post updates on this blog as these sessions are available.

I have also created a general study schedule that can be used to get through the material is about 3 months (13 weeks).  In looking at the calendar, we’re a little over 14 weeks away from the Infinite Actuary’s  live seminar in St. Louis.  Thus, if you start on this schedule within the next week or so, you would get through all of the material prior to the seminar.  That will also give you about 4-5 weeks after the seminar for memorization and review.

Hopefully, this will help you to organize your time and efforts.  Please let me know if you have any questions about the outline or the study schedule.

Jeremy

 2008 Syllabus Outline

Study Schedule

They say that the early bird catches the worm, and in some ways that’s true for Actuarial exams as well.  The earlier that you can start studying, the more time that you will have to get through the material and digest what you have learned (sorry, I couldn’t resist :o).

If you’re starting early on the online seminar for 2008, you will have immediate access to the online seminar from 2007.  As you will see, the material is broken down into specific sections that cover consistent topics.  Where possible, I have attempted to combine the study material to avoid redundancy.

Fortunately, almost everything on the syllabus is exactly the same for 2008, but there are a few sections that have been removed and a few new sections to add.  I wanted to give a brief summary of the changes so that you don’t waste any time studying material that is no longer on the exam.

Here is a list of the sections from 2007 that are no longer on the syllabus for 2008 and will be REMOVED from the online seminar:

• 2007 Section A.3.1 — Recent Developments in the Annuity World
• 2007 Section A.3.3 — Whither the VA?
• 2007 Section B.2.11 — Pricing a Select & Ultimate Annual Renewable Term Product

There are 6 new items that have been added to the syllabus for 2008.  I’m still reviewing these items, but right now it looks like nearly all of them will be added to Section B.2 in my online outline.  I plan to post an update when these sections are recorded and available.

Hopefully that gives the “early birds” an idea of what’s new for 2008!

Jeremy

Greetings and welcome to the 2008 edition of the SOA exam ILA-DP!!  (Individual Life & Annuities - Design & Pricing)

As you probably know, I’m back for my second year teaching The Infinite Actuary’s seminar for this exam.  Fortunately, almost all of the material is unchanged from 2007, so you should be able to get started right away and keep moving along at your own pace in the weeks to come.

I will be updating this blog periodically with information related to the online seminar.  In the next few days you can expect a summary of the changes for 2008 and a study schedule that will get you through the exam prior to the live seminar in St. Louis in September.  I will also be posting updates when new information is available (like new practice problems).

For now, I just want to wish everyone good luck with your initial studying.  I know that there is a lot of information on this exam, but I’ve tried to break it down into more manageable pieces. 

Happy Studying!

Jeremy

This week’s study schedule covers the remaining items on the syllabus.  These last few sessions cover a variety of items related to Regulations, which are included in Section F of my outline.

Here are the specific sessions in this week’s schedule:

ILA-D800 — General Nonforfeiture Approaches (F.2.1)

ILA-D801 & 802 — Standard Non-forfeiture Laws (F.2.2)

ILA-D110 — Policyholder Dividends (F.3.1)

ASOP 1 — Non-guaranteed Elements (F.3.2)

LIMRA Chapter 7 — Illusrations (F.4.1)

LIMRA  Chapter 8 — NY 4228 (F.4.2)

Hope to see many of you in Boston in just over a week!

Jeremy

The next phase of the study schedule will be to cover the information found in the textbook “Life Insurance and Modified Endowments.”  Some of this textbook is pretty boring to read and there is quite a bit of information that I don’t think will be on the exam.  Thus, I would not get too caught up with all of the details that are provided (especially in chapters 3 & 4).

Here are the chapters of Life Insurance and Modified Endowments that I recommend you cover in Week 12:

Chapter 1 — Introduction to Life Insurance Taxation (F.1.1)

Chapter 2 — Qualification as Life Insurance (F.1.2)

Chapter 3 — Assumptions under 7702 & 7702A (F.1.3)

Chapter 4 — Benefits under 7702 & 7702A (F.1.4)

Chapter 6 — Specific Products under 7702 & 7702A (F.1.5)

Chapter 9 — Review of Tax Policy (F.1.6)

If you read through the chapters fairly quickly, you should be able to complete these lessons in a week or so.

Good luck with your studying!

Jeremy