The NEAS Validation by Educational Experience (VEE) Online Courses
NEAS offers online courses for VEE credit: microeconomics, macroeconomics, corporate finance, mathematical statistics, and financial accounting . All five courses are approved for VEE credit by the SOA and CAS.
The online courses can be combined with college courses to meet VEE requirements. For example you may have a college course in microeconomics but not macroeconomics. Combine your college course with an online course for VEE credit.
Each course has 24 modules and a two-hour multiple-choice final exam. The courses are given four times a year. See Schedule for registration and exam dates.
Please register in the session you are taking the Final Exam.
During the week of exams, the final exams are:
- Monday: Microeconomics
- Tuesday: Mathematical statistics
- Wednesday: Corporate Finance
- Thursday: Macroeconomics
- Friday: Financial accounting
The NEAS online courses are rigorously graded; VEE credit is contingent on completing at least 80% of the homework assignments and a grade of B- or better on the final exam. The NEAS courses are intended for candidates:
- who have no local college offering courses on economics, corporate finance (with option pricing), regression, and time series to outside students
- who work during the day and cannot attend a college course
- who want clear syllabi, so they can complete the course as efficiently as possible
- who study both at home and at the office, and want material available online
- who live outside of North America and do not have other VEE opportunities.
OVERVIEW
Please watch this video for an explanation of what you will receive from taking courses at NEAS-seminars.com.
[TRANSCRIPT: Hi, I’m Tali with New England Actuarial Seminars. We provide flexible online courses in microeconomics, macroeconomics, corporate finance, mathematical statistics, and financial accounting to satisfy the VEE requirements for CAS and SOA membership.
Over the past fifteen years, thousands of candidates have received VEE credit by NEAS courses. The courses are online, so you proceed at your own pace; you work through the modules and practice problems on the discussion forum to prepare for the multiple-choice final exam. The final exam is proctored by an actuary, manager, or other professional at your company or university.
Our courses are perfect for candidates who work during the day and can’t attend college courses. The course materials are online, so you can complete the courses anywhere. Many of our students live in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, where other means of satisfying the VEE requirements are not available. Our courses are cost-effective means of getting VEE credit. They save you time and money, and they ensure excellent education.
Our path to VEE credit is designed for working students whose time is valuable. Registration is online, and you are supported by our office staff throughout the course. Our discussion boards provide immediate access to the faculty and other students enrolled in the courses, allowing you to quickly clarify items you don’t understand. The discussion boards specify the readings for each module, the homework assignments, and the practice problems to prepare you for the final exam.
The final exams are given four times a year; you select your study time. Most students space their study over the two months before the exam, but you can plan a shorter or longer schedule. You may defer or retake an exam at no extra cost, so you are not locked into given dates.
Registration dates and exam schedules are on the NEAS website. You may access all discussion forums before signing up for a course, and you can register online once you know you can pass. You can email our VEE course director for assistance on specific needs, and you can call our main office for general questions. Our office mails transcripts both to you and to the SOA for efficient receipt of VEE credit.]
REGISTRATION
You may participate in the courses before registering. The discussion boards and course materials are available even to candidates who do not register for the courses.
Please register in the session you are taking the final exam.
Do not send in homework until you have registered. All registration is online. Check the NEAS website www.neas-seminars.com, click on VEE, click here to reach the online registration form.
Check this page for registration deadlines.
Payment is by check or credit card and you may defer payment until the registration deadline. The courses are quick-paced. Buy the textbooks and begin the homework when the course begins, even if you defer payment until the end of the course.
TUITION
Tuition is $245 per course.
TEXTBOOKS
The textbooks are available at bookstores and internet booksellers (Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com); we have also arranged for the Actuarial Bookstore to carry the textbooks. In the U.S., the texts arrive within a few days of ordering them. Allow an additional week for mailing outside North America. At many employers, candidates can use library copies of the textbooks. Please check our website neas-seminars.com for the most current textbooks.
COURSE MODULES
Each course has 24 modules; you may choose a four month course or an accelerated two month course. Each module has five types of postings on the discussion board:
- Assigned readings from the textbook
- Illustrative test questions and practice problems
- Explanations, intuition, and responses to questions
- Insurance applications
- Homework assignments
The textbook readings specify the pages to read and formulas to know. Each section is summarized, so you know what to focus on. The discussion board notes the topics and formulas tested on the exam; no material is unexpected. For each course, our faculty sift through the textbook chapters, making sure all topics needed for VEE credit are covered, specifying which formulas must be memorized for the final exam, and explaining the types of problems on the exam.
Each course has about two hundred illustrative test questions and practice problems on the discussion boards along with explanations of the answers and discussions of related topics. The final exam questions and problems are similar to those on the discussion boards. The VEE courses teach the material; no exam problems are unexpected. If you master the material, you should pass the course.
PACING
The 24 modules for each course are geared to a four month semester paced like a college course or an accelerated two month course. You choose the study times you wish, adapting the course to your work week or study habits. Some candidates work best at a set rate; others want to finish the readings early to allow more time for exam preparation. Please remember to register in the session you plan to take the final exam. The pacing is totally up to the student. Textbook readings and homework assignments are posted on the discussion forum. Candidates in different countries and time zones can access the same course.
The homework assignments are an integral part of the course. If you pass the final exam but have not turned in at least 80% of the homework assignments, you receive an incomplete, which is changed to a passing grade when the homework is completed. Homework should be sent in when you have completed all of it.
If you defer the exam (or you do not receive a score of 70% or higher), you may take the exam again in a subsequent semester at no additional charge.
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS
Please watch the following video for an explanation of how to do the homework for these courses.
[TRANSCRIPT: Each module has a homework assignment specified on the discussion board for the course. The homework verifies that you have read the textbook; the final exam tests your mastery of the mathematical procedures. The homework assignments do not have specific answers, so they are not graded as right or wrong.
You must complete at least 80% of the homework assignments for the course. If the course has 24 modules with homework assignments, 80% is 19 homework assignments.
The homework is most easily done as you read the textbook. Send in the completed homework when you finish the course. If you pass the final exam but have not yet sent in the homework, you receive an incomplete, which is changed to a passing grade once we receive the homework.
Send the homework to vee@neas-seminars.com
Please put your name, course, module numbers, session, and contact information in the body of the email so that we can match your email to the correct candidate and give you full credit for your work. Likewise, make sure your name, the course, the module numbers, and the session appear on the homework, such as “John Doe, Mathematical statistics modules 1-24, Winter 2025.”
FINAL EXAM
Each course has a two-hour, 40-question final exam administered by your proctor. Most candidates take 1½ to 2 minutes per question. The questions test whether you have read the text and done the homework assignments. Each question is peer reviewed by two instructors, and questions challenged by a candidate are reviewed by non-NEAS faculty. Our top concern is ensuring that the exam is fair to candidates who study adequately.
The discussion forum has comprehensive sets of practice exam questions for each course. Actual exam questions are similar to the sample questions and practice problems on the discussion boards. All material tested is specified in the postings. If you do the work and read the text, you should pass the exam.
The final exam is proctored by an actuary or other professional in the following order:
- SOA or CAS Fellow / Associate or an accredited foreign actuary
- A member of a society using professional exams (e.g., CFA, CMA, CPA, CPCU, CLU)
- A corporate officer or manager, or a teacher or university instructor We email results about 4 weeks after the exam week; exams mailed from overseas may take longer.
- Proctor information should be entered online as you register or entered online as an update to your registration before the registration deadline. NEAS emails the final exam and blank answer keys to the proctor shortly before the exam date. Proctor will be emailed an information letter shortly after the registration deadline.
- VEE has three subjects (economics, corporate finance and accounting, and statistics).
- Economics covers micro- and macroeconomics. We give separate micro- and macroeconomics courses so you may join a college micro course with the online macro course (or vice versa).
- The statistics requirement covers mathematical statistics and financial accounting. We give separate courses so you may join a college statistics course with the online financial accounting course (or vice versa).
To receive VEE Credit, complete and submit the form on the SOA web site. The NEAS courses are pre-approved for VEE credit, but you still must submit the SOA form. The online courses are calibrated to fulfill the VEE requirements. Mastery of the material is geared to the level required for VEE. Candidates who have not taken the VEE subjects in college may find the online courses an efficient way to obtain VEE credit. The online courses can be combined with college courses for VEE credit, such as a college regression course and the online time series course. Approval codes are on http://eande.soa.org/vee/standardized-exams.html.
The online courses are ideal for working actuaries. Actuaries constantly weigh alternatives: how much time to spend on exam study vs VEE courses? The online courses help you master the course material as efficiently as possible. We specify the textbook pages for each module, we summarize what each section covers, and we provide illustrative questions and practice problems for each topic, so that you can study productively.
Our discussion boards provide immediate access to the NEAS faculty and other students enrolled in the courses, allowing you to quickly clarify items you don’t understand. If other students are taking the same online course at your employer, you can work on the homework together, though you must submit your own paper. (Employers with five or more students receive tuition discounts, reflecting the reduction in our costs.)
COURSE SEQUENCE
Ideally, you should complete the VEE courses by the time you take Courses M and C (Exams 3 and 4). These two exams are difficult; it is easier to study for the VEE courses while taking the first two exams. Passing VEE courses gives you extra incentive to pass the actuarial exams.
The work needed for these courses depends on your background. If you read the Wall Street Journal regularly at work, you will find that the Journal editorial pages echo the Landsburg and Barro textbooks. These courses give you VEE credit while deepening your understanding of political and economic issues.
Corporate finance is particularly useful for candidates working with financial or investment tasks. The course material is an excellent introduction to the modern portfolio theory and options pricing on the actuarial exams. The mathematical statistics course complement Exam P and prepares you for the SOA and CAS pricing and ratemaking material. The financial accounting course has full coverage of the new IFRS 17 material on insurance contracts, as well as GAAP and IFRS accounting for non-insurance firms.