ABOUT US
Casualty Study Manuals has been in operation for over sixteen years. It first provided study manuals for three of the CAS exams offered in Fall 1991 but now offers study manuals for all such exams. Manuals range in size from 142 pages for Exam 3F/MFE to 756 pages for Exam 7–US. They are updated annually (semiannually for the lower exams) so that each year students have outlines of the latest syllabus and solutions to the most recently available exam. Supplements containing older questions and solutions are published for Exams 3L, MLC, 4/C, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.
Features of the manuals that students have found useful in preparing for exams include the following:
•Each manual contains detailed outlines for virtually all the readings found in the syllabus for a particular part and past examination questions and sample solutions.
•Exam questions are sorted by reading and often by topic within a particular reading. Such an arrangement highlights those concepts that are most important and facilitates mastery of a reading.
•Consistency in presentation from one manual to another eliminates the need for a student to get used to different authors' styles.
•Sample solutions contain page references to allow students to refer back to the original text.
•Most manuals contain questions taken from at least twenty-five years of CAS and SoA exams.
Since beginning operations, CSM has built up a reliable base of students who have found our manuals effective study aids. Our customers include large companies, state insurance departments, consulting firms, and college students. We sell our manuals worldwide. Although students in the United States and Canada are by far our largest customers, we have sold manuals to students in various European and Caribbean countries, Singapore, Taiwan, Israel, and Sri Lanka.
Peter J. Murdza Jr. is the primary author of the manuals. He is a fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and an associate of the Society of Actuaries. He holds a B.A. from Boston College and an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Although currently most of his time is spent on updating and improving the manuals, he also does some independent consulting for state insurance departments, companies, and consumer groups, mainly in the ratemaking area. In the past, he has worked in a variety of actuarial positions. He began his career with Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, taught preparatory courses for the actuarial exams at the University of Hartford, and served as property-casualty actuary and chief actuary for the North Carolina Insurance Department.
Tamara T. Applegate is an independent contractor located in Asheboro, North Carolina who has supervised the marketing, production, and distribution of CSM manuals since the end of 1991. She also edits and authors some of the manuals. She holds B.S. (mathematics) and M.B.A. degrees from Wake Forest University. In the past, she has done consulting in the areas of information systems planning, financial modeling, and operational control.