India will need over 1,000 actuaries: Irdai

Mumbai: India needs to more than double the number of qualified actuaries to meet their rising demand from a whole spectrum of financial services. The country currently has only 460 actuaries for a population of 1.30 billion while it needs at least 1000 qualified actuaries to cater to the multiple domains and industries, Subhash Kuntia, chairman, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) said at the 21st Global Conference of Actuaries here.

“India has only 460 actuaries for a population of 1.30 billion, while the US has 37,000 actuaries despite having less than a third of the Indian population,” Khuntia said.

Terming the actuaries as the conscience keepers of the insurance industry, Khuntia asked the Institute of Actuaries of India to take more efforts to increase the number, adding that inherent skill sets in mathematics and software make Indians very amenable to the stream.

Khuntia said the actuaries can play a larger role beyond traditional areas of actuarial work such as in product innovation and regulatory sandbox initiatives and in public interest programmes.

Sunil Sharma, president of the Institute of Actuaries of India, said, "There are 24 life insurance and 34 non-life insurance companies and 460 actuaries are sufficient to meet the needs of the insurance and pension industries. But globally actuaries work in a whole spectrum of financial services industry such as investment banking, risk-based capital, government departments and in companies with long-term cash flow committments and so the need is to support these sectors beyond insurance."

Khuntia also said Irdai has not yet received any official proposal from LIC to list on the bourses.