Fall 2020 Exam Strategy – Timing

“Spring 2020” FSA exams got pushed back to mid-July, and that puts students in a strange situation for Fall 2020.

Spring results don’t come out until mid September.  If you wait until results day to decide what’s next for you, unless you’re super-human, you’re probably not going to have time to take a full FSA exam for the Fall 2020 sitting in early November.

You have a few options, but you need to start thinking about your plan now:

  1. Take the Fall 2020 sitting off – wait for your results from the Spring 2020 exam, and in the meantime, work on the FSA modules
  2. Sign up for a new exam – you can sign up for the next FSA exam in your path.  You then take this exam whether you passed the last exam or not.  For example, if took GH DP in Spring 2020, you would sign up for GH FV or Specialty for the Fall sitting.  When results come back in September for the GH DP exam:  if you passed, then you’re a step ahead and already very prepared to take the Fall 2020 exam.  If you failed, this doesn’t put you behind.  You just focus on the new exam for this sitting instead of re-taking GH DP with very limited study time.  Then for Spring 2021, you can decide which exam makes sense in your situation.
  3. Sign up for the same exam – go ahead and sign up for the same exam you are taking now for the Fall 2020 session.  Before you do this, I would recommend contacting customer service at the SOA to confirm.  Some students have been told that they can sign up for the same exam for next session, and if they end up passing the exam in Spring 2020, then they can cancel the fall registration and get a refund.  This may make sense if it’s your final exam requirement.

Signing up for Computer Testing Centers – Do It Now.

Fall 2020 exams will be given on computer at Prometric centers.  You first need to register for your exam with the SOA, and then you need to find a Prometric testing center near you for the available dates of your exam.  Some sites and time slots may sell out, so I recommend registering for your next exam as soon as possible!

TIA Seminar Considerations

I think you’ll have more than enough time to be fully prepared for the 5 hour or 2 hour exams if you start in July.  A lot of people do start studying at this time and have been successful in passing their exams.  This is especially true for the 2 hour Specialty exam.  However, if you plan to take a Fall 2020 exam after your Spring 2020 exam, get started as soon as possible!!!  Take a little sanity break, but don’t make it too long and then get back into the materials and study mode.

As always, you can purchase your next TIA course before getting exam results and will let you pause it indefinitely if you need to go back to the previous exam. If you’re taking a July exam, this will give you the ability to immediately begin studying for the fall exam (if you wish). If you get bad news about your July exam in September, you’ll have the choice of pausing the new course and going back to the previous course (provided you have a free extension available), or you could just stick with the new exam and try to knock it out (and return to the previous exam in spring 2021).

To be clear, there is no right or wrong decision this year. 2020 is a very unusual year to say the least, and I think it’s up to each of us to decide what’s best for us and go forward from there. As they say, it’s not about making the right decision, but about making the decision right. Make the most of the time you have, and try to continue moving forward in some way on your journey to fellowship. Good luck, stay safe, and always stay positive!

Spring 2020 Syllabus Updates – GH DP and GH Specialty

It looks like the SOA has moved GH DP and Specialty on to a new syllabus update schedule.  Changes used to occur during the summer, but now they will occur during the winter, so the same syllabi will be in effect for Spring and Fall sittings.

For Spring 2020/Fall 2020, the changes were not huge.  This is good news because we already had the big exam restructuring for Fall 2019.  Syllabus changes for DP and Specialty are attached below.

GH FV will have the same syllabus for Spring 2020 as they had for Fall 2019.

Case Studies – For Fall 2019, only DP-C used a case study.  I fully expect all portions of the DP and FV exams to utilize a case study for the Spring 2020 exams.  Keep an eye on the updates page of the SOA website, as they usually announce the case study a few months before the exam date.

TIAGroupHealthDP-SyllabusChanges-Spring2020 TIAGroupHealthSpecialty-SyllabusChanges-Spring2020

Fall 2019 – Group Health Exam Changes – New Syllabi Released

The SOA released the new syllabi for the Group Health restructured exams: DP, FV and Specialty for Fall 2019 and can be found on their website.

Summary
The new exams are mostly a restructuring of the old chapters, broken out into different buckets. There are a couple of new readings, but a lot of the material is using the same chapters and study notes as before.

Syllabi Changes

DP Exam
Objective 1 – Plan Provisions (Part of DP-C)
[Formerly Objective 1 of the Core exam]
-Added 1 new reading

Objective 2 – Manual Rates (Part of DP-C)
[Formerly Objective 2 of the Core exam]
-Added 5 new readings (all from former Specialty syllabus), 1 slightly revised reading

Objective 3 – Employee Benefit Strategy (Part of DP-C)
[Formerly Objective 3 of the Core exam]
-Added 2 new readings, 1 slightly revised reading, 1 removed reading

Objective 4 – Provider Reimbursement (Part of DP-A)
[Formerly Objective 1 of the Advanced exam]
-No changes

Objective 5 – Underwriting (Part of DP-A)
[Formerly Objective 4 of the Advanced exam]
-Removed 1 reading (moved to Specialty exam)

FV Exam
Objective 1 – Reserving (Part of FV-A)
[Formerly Objective 3 of the Advanced exam]
-Added 3 new readings (all from former Specialty syllabus), 1 removed reading

Objective 2 – Actuarial Appraisal (Part of FV-A)
[Formerly Objective 3 of the Specialty exam]
-Added 3 new readings, 1 slightly revised reading, 1 removed reading

Objective 3 – Government Programs (Part of FV-C)
[Formerly Objective 4 of the Core exam]
-Added 1 new reading, 1 slightly revised reading, 1 removed reading

Objective 4 – Financial Statements (Part of FV-C)
[Formerly Objective 5 of the Core exam]
-Added 1 new reading, 1 slightly revised reading, 5 removed readings

Objective 5 – Regulation and Taxation (Part of FV-C)
[Formerly Objective 6 of the Core exam]
-1 revised reading, 3 removed readings

Objective 6 – Retiree Benefits (Part of FV-C)
[Formerly Objective 7 of the Core exam]
-1 slightly revised reading
 

Specialty Exam
Objective 1 – Claims and Disease Management
[Formerly Objective 2 of the Advanced exam]
-No changes

Objective 2 – ERM
[Formerly Objective 2 of the Specialty exam (i.e. no change)]
-Added 3 new readings (1 from Advanced, 1 from ERM-Health Extension), 2 readings moved from former Objective 1, 2 slightly revised readings

Objective 3 – Risk Adjustment
[Formerly Objective 4 of the Specialty exam]
-Added 1 new reading

Deja Vu
For some of you, this may mean that you’ll see some chapters on the new exams that you’ve already been tested on (for instance, people taking Specialty now with Advanced credit will be very familiar with Objective 1 about Claims and Disease Management), but just look at it as having a head-start on the material.

Detailed Syllabus Changes
Detailed changes for each syllabus can be seen in the attached document.

TIAGroupHealth-SyllabusChanges-Fall2019

 

TIA Online Course Offering and Free Extension Policy – Spring 2019 – Spring 2021

As you are aware, the SOA has announced big changes for the Group Health FSA track, beginning in Fall 2019.  (See more details here:  http://theinfiniteactuary.com/blogs/exam_gh_dp/?p=14)

This post is designed to help answer questions about what TIA will offer for its online courses during this time period and how the one-time, free six month extension will work if a student doesn’t pass their exam.

Transition Process

Our intent is to continue to provide our excellent support and services to students in all different scenarios of this transition, whether you’re just starting your FSA process or finishing up with pieces of transitional credit.  We also strive to make the extension policy as fair as possible to students in every situation.  We understand that changes in the exam system can be stressful and cause anxiety, and we are doing everything we can to help you through this journey.

New Syllabi for DP and FV – not yet available

The new syllabi and course structure for the DP and FV exams have not been released yet by the SOA, so we don’t have information about the actual content of the exams.

Online Course Offerings and Extension Policy

Please see the attached file below, as it may be easier to see things graphically than to try to explain every scenario in words.

TIA-Group-Health-Exam-Transition-Policy-2019-2021

As always, if you have questions, please email me at [email protected].

 

 

SOA – FSA Health Track Changes – Fall 2019

The SOA announced upcoming changes to the FSA exams, and there are significant changes on the horizon for GH Core and GH Advanced.

https://www.soa.org/curriculum-changes/fsa-track-changes/

Here’s how I understand it:

A. Current Process:

-Core Exam (5 hrs)
-Advanced Exam (5 hrs)
-Specialty Exam (2 hrs) or ERM Exam (4 hrs)

B. New Process: (as of Fall 2019)

-DP Exam (5 hrs)
-FV Exam (5 hrs)
-Specialty Exam (2 hrs) or ERM Exam (4 hrs)

C. Transition Period – Fall 2019 – Spring 2021:
DP and FV exams are split, so you can get credit if you already passed Core (C) or Advanced (A). If you haven’t passed C or A, then you must pass the full DP and full FV exams. If you already passed both C and A, you won’t need to take DP or FV.

Already Passed Core, but Not Advanced – given transitional credit for DP-C and FV-C

-Must take BOTH FV-A and DP-A in the same sitting (next sitting)
-If you pass FV-A, but not DP-A, you get full credit for FV, and now only need to take DP-A the next sitting
-If you pass DP-A, but not FV-A, you get full credit for DP, and now only need to take FV-A the next sitting
-If you pass both, you now have credit for FV and DP

Already Passed Advanced, but Not Core – given transitional credit for DP-A and FV-A

-Must take BOTH FV-C and DP-C in the same sitting (next sitting)
-If you pass FV-C, but not DP-C, you get full credit for FV, and now only need to take DP-C the next sitting
-If you pass DP-C, but not FV-C, you get full credit for DP, and now only need to take FV-C the next sitting
-If you pass both, you now have credit for FV and DP

End of Period
-Transitional credits expire by the end of Spring 2021 – if you don’t have full DP credit (DP-C + DP-A), you have to take the full DP exam (and same for FV)

D. Module Change:
-Health Economics module will replace Financial Economics module

I will keep you updated as I learn more.

-Derek