what exactly does an actuary do?

Answer 1

An actuary looks at trends and makes recommendations on risk based on future expectations.

Typically employed by an insurance company to look at trends in the population and set risk factors based on expected behavior. For example, if you are an un-educated black male age 18 living in Harlem your risk of violent injury is higher than if you are a 50-year old Asian male living in Palo Alto, California. This would be used as a basis to set life insurance premium levels based on risk.

j