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To view the current Academic Calendar, go to www.sfu.ca/students/calendar.html.
Actuarial Mathematics Courses
ACMA 101 - Introduction to Insurance (3)
General overview of universally useful concepts in insurance, pensions and financial management. Typical life, health and property & casualty insurance products; underwriting; pricing; reserving; regulation; social insurance; retirement plans and annuities; financial planning: mortgages, loans, wealth management. Corequisite: MATH 150, 151, 154 or 157. Quantitative/Breadth-Science.
ACMA 210 - Mathematics of Compound Interest (3)
Measurement of interest, present value. Equations of value. Basic annuities: immediate, due, perpetuity. General annuities. Yield rates: cash flow analysis, reinvestment rate, portfolio and investment year methods. Amortization schedules and sinking funds. Bonds and other securities. Inflation, yield curves, immunization. Applications: real estate mortgages, depreciation methods. Interest rate disclosure and regulation in Canada. Covers the interest theory portion of Exam FM of the Society of Actuaries. Prerequisite: MATH 152; or MATH 155 or MATH 158 with a grade of at least B. Quantitative.
ACMA 320 - Actuarial Mathematics I (5)
Survival models. Life insurance and annuities for single life: present value random variables, premium calculations, reserves. Covers part of the syllabus for Exam LTAM of the Society of Actuaries, and practical applications such as computational aspects of pricing and reserving and risk measurement of insurance portfolios. This course is accredited under the University Accreditation Program of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. Prerequisite: STAT 285 and ACMA 210. Quantitative.
ACMA 336 - Job Practicum I (3)
First term of work experience in a co-operative education program for actuarial students. Students should contact an advisor as early in their career as possible for counseling. Units from this course do not count towards the units required for an 間眅埶AV degree. Grading is on a pass/withdraw basis. A course fee is required. Prerequisite: Students must apply and receive permission from the co-op coordinator at least one but preferably two terms in advance. They will normally be required to have completed 45 units with a GPA of 2.50 before they may take this practicum course.
ACMA 337 - Job Practicum II (3)
Second term of work experience in a co-operative education program available to actuarial students. Units from this course do not count towards the units required for an 間眅埶AV degree. Grading is on a pass/withdraw basis. A course fee is required. Prerequisite: ACMA 336 or Job Practicum I from another department. Students must apply and receive permission from the co-op coordinator at least one term in advance.
ACMA 340 - Financial Economics for Actuaries (3)
Actuarial models and their application to insurance and financial risks. Introductory derivatives. Options. Option strategies and risk management. Discrete-time models: binomial models, multi-period models. Continuous-time models: Black-Scholes-Merton model. Market-making, hedging, and option Greeks. Introduction to exotic options. Covers part of the syllabus for Exam IFM of the Society of Actuaries. This course is accredited under the University Accreditation Program of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. Prerequisite: ACMA 210 and STAT 285. Quantitative.
ACMA 355 - Loss Models I (3)
Severity models. Risk measures. Frequency models. Frequency and severity with coverage modifications: deductibles, policy limits, coinsurance. Parametric estimation: method of moments, MLE. Bayesian estimation. Model selection. Covers part of the syllabus for Exam STAM of the Society of Actuaries. This course is accredited under the University Accreditation Program of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. Corequisite: STAT 330. Quantitative.
ACMA 360W - Actuarial Communication (3)
Guided experiences in written and oral communication of actuarial ideas and results to both expert and lay audiences. Prerequisite: ACMA 320. Students who have taken STAT 300W first may not then take this course for further credit. Writing/Quantitative.
ACMA 395 - Special Topics in Actuarial Science (3)
Topics in areas of actuarial science not covered in the regular curriculum of the department. Prerequisite: Dependent on the topics covered.
ACMA 425 - Actuarial Mathematics II (3)
Long-term insurance coverages. Survival model estimation. Multiple state models. Premium calculations. Reserves. Profit testing. Pension plans and retirement benefits. Applications. Covers part of the syllabus for Exam LTAM of the Society of Actuaries. This course is accredited under the University Accreditation Program of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. Prerequisite: ACMA 320. Quantitative.
ACMA 436 - Job Practicum III (3)
Third term of work experience in a co-operative education program available to actuarial students. Units from this course do not count towards the units required for an 間眅埶AV degree. Grading is on a pass/withdraw basis. A course fee is required. Prerequisite: ACMA 337 or Job Practicum II from another department. Students must apply and receive permission from the co-op coordinator at least one term in advance.
ACMA 437 - Job Practicum IV (3)
Fourth term of work experience in a co-operative education program available to actuarial students. Units from this course do not count towards the units required for an 間眅埶AV degree. Grading is on a pass/withdraw basis. A course fee is required. Prerequisite: ACMA 436 or Job Practicum III from another department. Students must apply and receive permission from the co-op coordinator at least one term in advance.
ACMA 438 - Job Practicum V (3)
Optional fifth term of work experience in a co-operative education program available to actuarial students. Units from this course do not count towards the units required for an 間眅埶AV degree. Grading is on a pass/withdraw basis. A course fee is required. This course may be repeated for additive credit. Prerequisite: ACMA 437 or Job Practicum IV from another department. Students must apply and receive permission from the co-op coordinator at least one term in advance.
ACMA 440 - Models for Financial Economics (3)
Advanced actuarial models and their application to insurance and financial risks. Introduction to stochastic calculus: Ito's lemma, risk neutrality. Fundamental theorems of asset pricing. Black-Scholes-Merton partial differential equations. Exotic options. Monte Carlo methods. Advanced option pricing models. Implied volatility. Actuarial applications. Covers part of the syllabus for Exam IFM of the Society of Actuaries. This course is accredited under the University Accreditation Program of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. Prerequisite: ACMA 320 and ACMA 340. Quantitative.
ACMA 455 - Loss Models II (3)
Aggregate loss models. Credibility: models and estimation. Insurance and reinsurance coverages. Pricing and reserving for short-term insurance coverages. Covers part of the syllabus for Exam STAM of the Society of Actuaries. This course is accredited under the University Accreditation Program of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. Prerequisite: ACMA 320 and ACMA 355. Quantitative.
ACMA 465 - Demography and Mortality Models (3)
Measures of mortality and fertility: Crude rates, age-specific mortality rates, adjusted measures of mortality. Construction of life tables from census data. Stationary population theory: survivorship group, Lexis diagram. Stable population theory: Sharpe-Lotka theorem, growth rate, quasi-stable populations. Mortality models. Longevity risk. Prerequisite: ACMA 320. Quantitative.
ACMA 470 - Property and Casualty Insurance (3)
Ratemaking: terminology, process, trend, ultimate losses, expense provisions, profit and contingencies, overall rate indications, classification rates, increased limits. Individual risk rating: prospective systems, retrospective rating, design. Loss Reserving: accounting concepts, definitions, principles, loss reserving process. Risk classification: relationship to other mechanisms, criteria for selecting rating variables, examples, efficiency, estimating class relativities. Covers part of the syllabus for Exam 5 of Casualty Actuarial Society. Prerequisite: ACMA 320. Students with credit for ACMA 490 or STAT 490 may not take this course for further credit. Quantitative.
ACMA 475 - Theory of Pension (3)
Overview of pension plans: design, funding, regulation, accounting standards. Pension funding methods: actuarial cost methods, terminal funding method. Individual actuarial cost methods: accrual benefit cost method, entry-age actuarial cost method, unit-credit method, individual-level-premium method, attainted-age-normal method. Group actuarial cost methods. Prerequisite: ACMA 320. Corequisite: ACMA 425. Students with credit for STAT 490 or ACMA 490 may not take this course for further credit. Quantitative.
ACMA 490 - Selected Topics in Actuarial Science (3)
The topics included in this course will vary from term to term depending on faculty availability and student interest. Prerequisite: Dependent on the topic covered.
ACMA 494 - Directed Studies in Actuarial Science (2)
Independent study and/or research in topics chosen in consultation with the supervising instructor. Prerequisite: Written permission from the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science undergraduate curriculum committee.
ACMA 495 - Directed Studies in Actuarial Science (3)
Independent study and/or research in topics chosen in consultation with the supervising instructor. Prerequisite: written permission from the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science undergraduate curriculum committee.
ACMA 820 - Stochastic Analysis of Insurance Portfolios (4)
Life insurance models. Interest rate models for life insurance: time series, stochastic differential equations, estimation. Portfolios of identical policies. Diversified portfolios. Prerequisite: ACMA 320.
ACMA 821 - Advanced Actuarial Models (4)
Advanced non-life insurance mathematics. Individual risk models, collective risk models, ruin models. Actuarial reserve models: Bonus-malus system, IBNR techniques. Generalized linear models in Actuarial Science. Prerequisite: ACMA 335.
ACMA 850 - Actuarial Science: Selected Topics (4)