Corwin Zass, founder and chief strategist of Actuarial Risk Management, compares hiring actuarial staff to a rousing game of whac-a-mole.

Companies are so desperate for actuaries they poach staff from each other, creating a vacancy somewhere else just as soon as their own is filled.

“If a company has 20 actuarial roles it is not unreasonable that they may have five open positions,” Mr Zass said. “This means the 15 actuarial employees are now having to pick up the slack or engage consultants.”

To bridge the gap in Bermuda, the US-based Mr Zass this month launches a branch of his company on Victoria Street in Hamilton, ARM Bermuda.

“Anything you could think of where there is an actuarial need, I want to codify,” he said.

He said every insurer struggles to fill empty seats earmarked for actuaries, with many companies not having any actuarial team at all.

He attributed the shortage to more young people choosing data science over actuarial science, because there is no gauntlet of exams to pass through to become a full-fledged practitioner. Both career paths pay well.

“In Bermuda, there are consultants to hire on island, but they are expensive,” Mr Zass said.

He noticed Bermuda’s actuarial shortage this year while working as interim chief executive officer for 777 Re, closing the insurance entity.

“Because that didn’t fail, I garnered an enormous amount of goodwill from the Bermuda Monetary Authority,” he said. “They hinted that it would be a good idea to set up shop in Bermuda.”

He aims to keep costs down for local insurers by doing 70 per cent of the work from an office in Argentina.

“It is a winning solution, that frankly, no one else has,” he said.

Mr Zass thought the Bermuda branch of his company would probably never grow beyond four or five people.

“Because of the back office in Argentina we do not need more than that,” he said. “We can really change the paradigm on the price point, while clients get the same high quality service.”

His target demographic will be class C, D and E insurers.

When he first founded ARM in Austin, Texas, more than 20 years ago, firms from all over the world started calling him for help finding actuaries.

“I created a subcontracting business model connecting with a lot of actuaries who used to be senior actuaries in established organisations,” he said. “They got to where they had 30 or 40 years of experience and were out on their own. I built teams around them to execute on advisory or audit or whatever was needed. Then I started to bring on staff internally.”

Then ten years ago he noticed there was an opportunity to branch out overseas.

The only challenges he had setting up the company in Bermuda, was obtaining work permits for his staff.

“It was like opening any office, there are things to do and everyone is trying to co-ordinate to get it all done,” he said. “It just takes a little bit of time.”

ARM Bermuda will be holding an open house on November 15 from 11.30am to 1.30pm in the ground floor conference room at 22 Canon’s Court, Victoria Street in Hamilton.