actuarial

American  

[ak-choo-air-ee-uhl] / ˌæk tʃuˈɛər i əl /

Rarely actuarian

adjective

1. Insurance. relating to or being the science of computing premium rates, risks, dividends, etc., according to probabilities based on statistics.

   Over this period, the fund earned a return of 14.37%, exceeding the actuarial assumed return of 7.70%.

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Other Word Forms

• actuarially adverb

Etymology

Origin of actuarial

First recorded in 1850–55; actuar(y) ( def. ) + -ial ( def. )

Explanation

Actuarial data are the statistics used to calculate various sorts of risk that insurance companies insure people against. If you want to know how likely it is for your car to be stolen, there is surely some actuarial data that could give you an answer. Actuarial science includes statistics, probability, mathematics, and economics, and the people trained in it are called actuaries. When you buy a homeowner's insurance policy, for instance, the insurance company calculates how much they’ll charge you by consulting the actuarial data, which tells them how likely it is that something will happen to your house (based on how old your house is, where it’s located, the building materials, your credit rating, and lots of other factors).

Example Sentences

A man doing the same thing would collect a bit more per year, because the actuarial tables say he isn’t likely to live as long.

From MarketWatch • Mar. 26, 2026

Last Wednesday, the FHA released its annual actuarial report showing that the ratio stood at 11.47%.

From Barron's • Jan. 7, 2026

Cynthia, who in her 20s entered a marriage that any actuarial table would have advised strongly against, is almost apologetic for finding herself wed to Warren.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 23, 2025

District officials continue to insist that the fund for retiree benefits is underfunded by about $8 billion, per actuarial studies.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 25, 2025

The authorities were extremely strict about this, and the only kind of publication that would pass muster might be a quarterly on actuarial science for a prisoner studying accounting.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela