The Ecole des HEC of the University of Lausanne offers a complete curriculum for actuarial education. The programme develops an understanding of the actuarial principles and techniques necessary for the management of insurance companies as well as financial and savings institutions including pension funds and social security systems. Although applied mathematics are the actuary's main tool, a fair knowledge of economics, management and computing is also required to enable him to work effectively.

The compulsory courses of the programme are : Probability & Stochastic Processes, Quantitative Methods for Actuaries, Actuarial Modelling, Interest Theory, Life Contingencies I and II, Loss Models, Risk Theory, Health and Life Insurance, Life Insurance Actuarial Controlling, Credibility Theory, Social Insurance, Pension Funds, Actuarial Evaluation of Social Security Systems I and advanced courses in finance. Furthermore, the student has to elect some optional courses. One group of elective courses leads to a specialization in social security actuarial valuation.

This Master’s is fully integrated within the new Bologna regime. All students with a Bachelor degree in management, economics or business information systems from a Swiss or fully accredited foreign university are eligible to register and will be accepted without special conditions. Registration of participants holding degrees in subjects other than economic science or awarded by non accredited foreign universities is evaluated case by case by a committee. A degree in mathematics or in a related field will be judged to be an excellent preparation for the Master Programme in Actuarial Science.

The Master of Actuarial Science programme meets the educational requirements of the Syllabus of the Swiss Association of Actuaries. Students will be prepared to take some of the core examinations of the Society of Actuaries.

Due to certain optional courses, the Master Programme will be in compliance with the future syllabus of the International Association of Actuaries, which is currently working on promoting a new specialty track in the field of social security at the international level.

Established experts in social security financing from the ILO will deliver courses on social security. The social security knowledge base will be the recent ILO series of textbooks on social security financing, actuarial practice, health financing and social budgeting.

"There is a growing demand for actuaries, and, at the same time, there are increasing requirements to prepare the future actuaries for the challenging tasks in a progressively complex environment. By creating the Master of Actuarial Science programme, the University of Lausanne, my Alma Mater, has shown leadership. Both students and their future employers will be great beneficiaries of this programme".