List of fictional actuaries


Fictional actuaries and the appearance of actuaries in works of fiction have been the subject of a number of articles in actuarial journals.

Film

About Schmidt - Warren Schmidt is portrayed by Jack Nicholson; the movie mostly covers Schmidt's adventures about retiring from an insurance companyAlong Came Polly - Reuben Feffer is a risk assessment expert, and though not explicitly stated, performs the job of an underwriterAre You With It? - a musical comedy featuring Donald O'Connor as an actuary who is forced to join a carnival after misplacing a decimal point on a statistical tableThe Billion Dollar Bubble - featuring James Woods, based on the Equity Funding scandalBoyhood - Mason Evans, Sr. mentions at a baseball game that he recently passed his second actuarial exam, and later discusses his job at an insurance firmClass Action - featured Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as father and daughter lawyers on opposite sides of a massive class action lawsuit; actuarial analysis plays a key role in the outcomeDouble Indemnity - a Billy Wilder film, with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck; possibly the first to feature an actuary; the plot revolves around a murder that seeks to gain advantage from a particular aspect of an insurance policy; an insurance investigator knows the actuarial statistics and becomes suspiciousEscape Clause - Andrew McCarthy plays Richard Ramsay in an actuarial thriller; to quote TVguide.com, "The makers of this direct-to-video release thought the world was ready for a thriller about an insurance actuary. They thought wrong."Fight Club - Edward Norton plays the protagonist, who briefly describes that his job entails the assessment of risk associated with car accidents for an insurance company; though not explicitly stated, he performs the job of an underwriter who uses actuarially derived premiums to benchmark quotesGroundhog Day - Bill Murray's character Phil Connors is pestered daily by talkative insurance salesman Ned, who at one point insists that he has friends "who live and die by the actuarial tables." The Ice Road - Varnay ; he introduces himself as an insurance actuaryIt Chapter Two - James Ransone plays the adult version of Eddie Kaspbrak, who explains during the Losers Club's reunion dinner that he works as a risk analyst in New York. Saw VI - William Easton is a health insurance executive who describes actuarial mathematics in a conversation with John KramerStranger than Fiction - Harold Crick, a socially isolated IRS auditor, mentions that he was once engaged to an auditor who left him for an actuaryPaddington (film) - Henry Brown is a devoted risk analyst at an insurance company and uses actuarial knowledge to predict that having a bear in the house will increase the chances of major disaster occurring by 4000%Sweet Charity - documents the romantic life of an actuary played by John McMartin Thirteen Conversations About One Thing - starring Matthew McConaughey; the lives of a lawyer, an actuary, a housecleaner, a professor, and the people around them intersect as they ponder order and happiness in the face of life's cold unpredictabilityTron - the character Ram is an actuarial computer programZootopia - the character Jaguar is a young tiger who aspires to be an actuary. Hellboy - the character Major Ben Daimio, played by Daniel Dae Kim, states that he was once an actuary, and used to assess risk based on a series of complex mathematical equations

Literature

  • The Areas of My Expertise - by John Hodgman; portrays actuaries as prophets who predict the future, and are organized into various guilds; they have various ethics, such as not predicting the date of one's own deathBatman - comic series which featured a villain named the Actuary, a mathematical genius who applies formulae to aid the Penguin in committing crimes.Bet Me - by Jennifer Crusie; the main character, Minerva Dobbs, is a thirty-something actuary looking for love
  • Un Certain Monsieur Blot - by Pierre Daninos; Mr. Blot is an actuary, who wins a competition as the most average man in France; the book includes the acerbic observation that “there were two kinds of actuaries – those who were still doing actuarial work and those who had found something better to do”
  • The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic are part of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld fantasy series and feature Twoflower, the "actuary and world’s first tourist"
  • The Foundation Trilogy - by Isaac Asimov features "psycho-historians," a sort of hidden priesthood that manipulates politics and economics on a galactic scale to accomplish the goals of peace and prosperity. Part of the theory is that on a planetary scale, people are not predictable but on a galactic scale, the law of large numbers is valid and therefore, the reactions of the galactic civilization, as a whole, are predictable. Given the characteristics of psycho-historians, they are very much like actuaries.The [Good Soldier Švejk] - Lieutenant Pelikán is "a mathematician in an insurance firm"
  • "Hunted Down" - short story by Charles Dickens with an actuary, Mr. Meltham of the Inestimable Life Assurance Company, as its heroIndustrial Magic - by Kelley Armstrong; character Reuben Aldrich is the head of the actuarial department at a supernatural organisation; he may also be a necromancer
  • Mrs. Warren's Profession - "I shall set up in chambers in the City and work at actuarial calculations and conveyancing," says Vivie, the daughter of the eponymous heroine of George Bernard Shaw’s playPreferred Risk - by Frederik Pohl and Lester del Rey ; describes a dystopian future dominated by the insurance industry; in Pohl's own words, "the one novel I wrote with Lester del Rey, which was called Preferred Risk, took a year out of my life. It's a terrible book. If you come across it, don't read it."The Rabbit Factor - by Antti Tuomainen; describes the actuary Henri Kosinen who inherits an adventure park. A humorous crime fiction novel.The Year of the Jackpot - short story by Robert A. Heinlein; the male protagonist is a former actuary whose analysis of current events leads him to a disturbing conclusion about the fate of the world.The Chronicles of Elantra - a series of books by Michelle West; when investigations into a government official occur it is referenced that the Hawks have not got the actuaries involved.

Manga

  • Homunculus - by Hideo Yamamoto; features Susumu Nakoshi as the story's protagonist, who was an actuary before he told people he was going on an extended vacation; instead, he lives in an old car; he resigns later in the story, and his reason for throwing his job away is still unknown
  • Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service - features a malevolent actuary who uses statistics to determine scenarios that will most likely result in the death of particular people

Television

The Robinsons - sitcom about a reinsurance actuary, Ed Robinson, who realises that reinsurance is not his passion and decides to rethink his life
  • A Million Little Things - Gary works for an insurance company as an actuary
  • Kim Possible - Ron's dad works as an actuary as first revealed in the 2007 episode, Odds Man In
  • Poker Face - An actuary is looking to purchase drugs at a concert but is mistaken for a cop in S01E04 Rest In Metal
  • Secret Diary of a Call Girl - An actuary visits a call girl after years without sex. He is very shy and gets turned on by making farmyard animal noises
  • Supernatural - in season 7 episode 8 , Dean Winchester claims he was writing an article for "Actuarial Insider" while investigating the suddenly promoted junior salesman to CEO of an insurance company.
  • The Divorce Insurance - Genius actuary Ki-jun from Plus General Insurance sets out to develop a divorce insurance policy with a task force including an underwriter, quant, risk surveyor, loss adjuster, and a former top insurance agent to determine fair premiums.
  • The [Client List (TV series)|The Client List] - a masseuse asks one of her clients "So, what is an actuary?"

Theater

  • I [Love You Because] - musical; major character Diana Bingley is an actuary; she suggests some formula-based "dating rules" to her friend Marcy in the key number "The Actuary Song"

Other

  • Angel Hare - web series, where one of the characters - Francis - mentions offhandedly that they're an actuary.
  • Society of Actuaries - holds a speculative actuarial fiction contestWordplay - documentary which explores the world of crossword makers and aficionados; makes reference to actuaries as one of three occupations which are particularly adept at crossword solving