Exam ASTAM Details

Below we’ll lay out everything you need to know for your ASTAM exam from registration details to exam day to what to do after you receive your results.

Prerequisites

Exams P and FAM (specifically the S portion), and VEE Math Stats. Exam ASTAM assumes knowledge of concepts covered in these exams, and builds off of those concepts.

Exam Offerings

Exam ASTAM is offered twice a year, once in the Spring (late April/early May) and once in the Fall (late October/early November).

Exam Format

6 Written-Answer Questions, Administered by Prometric

  • Questions and formula sheet shown on computer.
  • For 5 out of 6 questions, responses written in answer booklet. Excel workbook available but not submitted for grading.
  • For 1 out of 6 questions, responses entered into Excel workbook. Only Excel workbook submitted for grading.
  • Scratchpad will be provided

Exam Duration

3 Hours

Registration Info

Register online at www.soa.org before the registration deadline.



Upcoming exam windows and registration deadlines


  1. Apr 23, 2025

    Register by Mar 24, 2025

  2. Oct 24, 2025

    Register by Sep 22, 2025

Exam Day and Results: Things To Keep In Mind

Don't forget your must-haves for exam day! Know what to bring and what to do after you pass the exam

What to Bring

  • A government-issued photo ID that includes a signature
  • Recommended Calculator: TI-30XS MultiView
    (See Other Options)
  • A reference to your five-digit candidate number (for exam submission)

Exam Results

After approximately 8 to 11 weeks, the SOA will release the list of passing candidate ID numbers. A few days after that, you will get your exam score in your official SOA transcript when you log into the SOA website.

Passing the Exam

If you haven't taken these exams, you'll need to take Exams SRM, PA, and ATPA.

You will need to obtain your remaining VEE credits, complete your modules (Pre-Actuarial Foundations, Actuarial Science Foundations, FAP), and fulfill your APC requirements in order to attain your ASA designation.

Expert Tips: Helpful insights from our coaches

Our coaches know this exam inside and out. Check out their expert tips for achieving a passing score.

  • Photo of Kong Foo Pang

    Knowing how to use basic principles to solve problems is critical. Always prioritize these principles as the heart of your learning and treat shortcuts as supplementary tools.

    Photo of Kong Foo PangKong Foo Pang Product Manager
  • Photo of Terence Chow

    Time management is key. Try your best to spend no more than 3 minutes per point. If you think you know how to answer a question but you're pressed for time, at least write a list of steps you'd take and/or formulas you'd use to arrive at the final answer. You may get partial credit.

    Photo of Terence ChowTerence Chow VP of Product
  • Photo of Austin Wallestad

    Earning as many partial credits as possible is a key strategy in a written-answer exam. If you can't provide a full answer, clearly outline your thought process. Remember to demonstrate your work and include all essential steps or formulas.

    Photo of Austin WallestadAustin Wallestad Content Coach

Course Offerings: Topics and weights

  1. 32%

    In this section, we extend our knowledge of severity and aggregate models from what we learned in Exam FAM. We will discuss more ways to mix distributions, study tail exposure, and calculate aggregate probabilities.

    • 20 Efficient, bite-sized Learning Manuals
    • 154 Minutes of high-quality Learning Videos
    • 28 Assignment Questions
    • 15 Quiz and Exams questions
  2. 17%

    In Exam FAM, we learned how to perform maximum likelihood estimation, which gave us point estimates. In this section, we will extend that to interval estimates.

    Then, we will introduce a number of hypothesis tests, as well as a few score-based approaches, for model selection.

    • 32 Efficient, bite-sized Learning Manuals
    • 187 Minutes of high-quality Learning Videos
    • 55 Assignment Questions
    • 0 Quiz and Exams questions
  3. 17%

    Remember classical credibility from Exam FAM? In this section, we will cover more credibility methods.

    The Bayesian and Bühlmann methods assumes we model data using parametric models. The empirical Bayes methods bypass the parametric models to estimate the Bühlmann parameters with data.

    • 33 Efficient, bite-sized Learning Manuals
    • 314 Minutes of high-quality Learning Videos
    • 51 Assignment Questions
    • 0 Quiz and Exams questions
  4. 17%

    This section introduces methods to estimate outstanding claims by analyzing frequency and severity separately.

    • 19 Efficient, bite-sized Learning Manuals
    • 125 Minutes of high-quality Learning Videos
    • 10 Assignment Questions
    • 0 Quiz and Exams questions
  5. 17%

    In this section, we will pick up where we left off in Exam FAM. We will mainly learn about charging insureds with different exposures fair rates.

    • 10 Efficient, bite-sized Learning Manuals
    • 59 Minutes of high-quality Learning Videos
    • 15 Assignment Questions
    • 0 Quiz and Exams questions

We're just getting started

Now that you're armed with Exam ASTAM insights, let's get your studies started! From video lessons and manuals to practice exams and question bank, find everything you need to achieve a passing score.

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