The CB3 Business Management subject is designed to help you understand the business environment in which you will be working, your professional responsibilities and how to tackle business-related problems. It is a practically focused programme, which includes some preparatory work ahead of a business simulation game, completion of a workbook, with some short exercises, and finally an online test. Individuals are encouraged to have work experience before entering for CB3.
Exam format
The legal materials prepared by the College of Law deal with areas which are of relevance to actuaries: mergers and acquisitions, data protection and intellectual property. Where possible and relevant the legal materials also provide a comparison with the law in other jurisdictions.
The College of Law materials allows you to work through a workbook for each legal topic and gives you the opportunity to test yourself as you progress. The test yourself questions are designed to get you thinking about the sort of issues which may crop up in the CB3 examination.
There are 52 strategy tutorials – each will take about 5 minutes to complete, with some with additional exercises taking longer.
The business game and required reading will now run in parallel over a 6 week period. The final assessment is an online test which is not timed, but should take less than 2 hours to complete.
Business Management covers the following key areas:
- Industry developments and challenges in all practice areas
- Strategic thinking
- The importance of lifelong personal development and learning
The exam also covers the legal principles that are relevant to actuarial work by building on the themes introduced in the Stage 1 Professionalism Course.
Successful completion of this exam is a requirement of qualification for those who joined the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries on or after 1 July 2004. If you joined on or after 1 March 2012 you will need to have passed the Stage 1 Professionalism Course before you can apply for CB3.
CB3 is an online exam, an online business game, a set of written exercises, and an online multiple choice exam. The business game takes approximately an hour per session, over a six week period, but input is not necessarily required every day over this period.
You should download the Syllabus for CB3 and read our Guide to CB3 for information on the following:
- Entry requirements for CB3
- Objectives of the exam
