Insurance Certification Options for Data Analytics

Are you an insurance professional looking to boost your résumé with new credentials? Consider a new insurance certification in data analytics.

Why Data Analytics?

You’ve probably heard a lot lately about big data, predictive modeling, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. These concepts are all possible because of the enormous amounts of data being produced every day. The data come from consumers’ browser history, smart devices, and data in the public domain.

At the same time, computing power has continued to scale at an astonishing rate. New hardware, software, and cloud computing technologies are evolving rapidly.

As a result, a new discipline has emerged: data science.  Jobs that didn’t exist five years ago are now changing the business of insurance. You won’t want to be behind the curve on these new concepts. Now is the time to start learning about insurance data analytics!

The Institutes’ new AIDA insurance certification

The Institutes offers an introductory-level Associate in Insurance Data Analytics (AIDA) designation.  This program provides an overview of statistical concepts, loss triangles, and other fundamentals.

The courses are:

1. Big Data Analytics for Risk and Insurance
2. Risk and Insurance Analysis Techniques

Recently, I earned the AIDA designation from The Institutes. I found it valuable in understanding the work of the data science, actuarial, and modeling teams I support. One of those data scientists is now pursuing this designation as well. She believes it will help her tie her analytics experience to the work she is expected to do within the insurance industry.

Insurance Data Management Association (IDMA)’s insurance certifications

The Insurance Data Management Association (IDMA) offers an introductory course and two levels of certification for insurance professionals.

IDMA offers a standalone introductory course, Data Management for Insurance Professionals. This course offers an overview of the data issues insurance companies face. The course is an inexpensive, low-commitment option to help you get started. It does not, however, apply as credit toward the certification program.

If you want to learn more — and add an insurance certification to your résumé — consider their four-course designation path. The courses are:

1. Insurance Data Collection and Reporting
2. Insurance Data Quality
3. Systems Development and Project Management (waived if you have the Associate in Technology (AIT) designation from The Institutes)
4. Data Management, Administration, and Warehousing

Students can earn the Associate Insurance Data Manager (AIDM) designation with no prior coursework. The Certified Insurance Data Manager (CIDM) designation is available for students who have completed additional coursework from other institutions.

I recently completed the CIDM certification. Thanks to the AIT waiver, I only needed to complete two more courses to add CIDM to my credential list. Full disclosure: I did fail one of the exams on the first try. Nobody’s perfect!

New insurance certification options from Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS)

Finally, Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) now offers a Certified Specialist in Predictive Analytics (CSPA) designation and will soon launch a Catastrophe Modeling certification.

While I listed them here, I’ve not yet explored these insurance certification options personally. My colleagues in the actuarial discipline, however, were very interested in learning more.

Additional Reading on Data Analytics

If you don’t want to commit to a certification, consider picking up one of these books to learn more. In particular, I recommend Predictive Analytics by Eric Siegel.