{"id":2842,"date":"2020-08-20T15:55:55","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T19:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/?post_type=profile&#038;p=2842"},"modified":"2026-04-03T14:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:15:09","slug":"hal-tepfer","status":"publish","type":"profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/profile\/hal-tepfer\/","title":{"rendered":"Hal Tepfer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A twenty-five-year veteran of Boston University\u2019s Metropolitan College Actuarial Science program as a part-time instructor, Mr. Tepfer was appointed associate professor the practice and director of the Actuarial Science program in the fall of 2018. A recipient of MET\u2019s Roger Deveau Part-Time Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, Mr. Tepfer brings more than forty years of actuarial experience to the classroom, most recently as senior vice president at CBIZ RPS. He is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, an Enrolled Actuary with the Joint Board for Enrollment of Actuaries, a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries, and a member of other actuarial organizations. He serves on the Internal Revenue Service&#8217;s Advisory Committee on Joint Board Exams and the American Academy of Actuaries&#8217; Committee on Education. Tepfer is nationally recognized for his expertise in the area of pensions and health consulting, particularly with union plans.<\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h2 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Courses<\/h2><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\">\n<ul><div class=\"course-feed\"><\/p>\n<li>MET AT 521 \u2013 Financial Mathematics<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>MET AT 531 \u2013 Fundamentals of Actuarial Mathematics<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>MET AT 545 \u2013 Introduction to Risk Management<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>MET AT 771 \u2013 Advanced Long-Term Actuarial Mathematics<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>MET AT 781 \u2013 Advanced Short-Term Actuarial Mathematics<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>MET AT 799 \u2013 Capstone in Actuarial Science<\/li>\n<p><\/div><\/ul>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h2 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Scholarly Works<\/h2><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>Articles<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cEssays on \u201cImpact of AI on Retirement Professionals and Retirees\u2014A Summary.&#8221; <em>Retirement Section News<\/em>, Society of Actuaries (January 2025).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat is the Retirement Section Council?\u201d <em>Retirement Section News<\/em>, Society of Actuaries (July 2023).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChairperson\u2019s Corner.&#8221; <em>Retirement Section News<\/em>, Society of Actuaries (January 2023).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Withdrawal Liability Interest Rate Puzzle.\u201d <em>Retirement Section News<\/em>, Society of Actuaries (March 2022).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInterpreting Pandemic-Related Decreases in Life Expectancy.\u201d Coauthor, American Academy of Actuaries Issue Brief (December 2021).<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/contingencies.org\/the-long-run-what-we-know-after-three-years-under-mpra\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Long Run\u2014What we know after three years under MPRA<\/a>.\u201d <em>Contingencies<\/em> (January\/February 2018).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStep into the Freeze: A DB Pension Plan Primer.\u201d <em>Workspan <\/em>(July 2006).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDefined Benefit Plan Design after the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996.\u201d <em>Journal of Pension Benefits <\/em>(Summer 1997).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChanges in TRA97 Affecting Sole Proprietors.\u201d <em>Journal of Pension Benefits <\/em>(Winter 1998).<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<!--\n\n\n<h4>What advice do you have for new students?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n<blockquote>The actuarial profession is both exciting and challenging, and for those reasons, now is a great time to be considering becoming an actuary. While the 'old school' model of an actuary is someone who grinds out premiums at an insurance company, actuaries today are working in a broad range of industries and using their actuarial skills in many different environments. So, it is important that an actuarial education provides students with the skills needed to answer questions that have never been asked before and solve problems that have never occurred before. In MET\u2019s Actuarial Science program, we encourage students to go beyond rote learning and develop the skills to work in areas as diverse as finance, insurance, data mining, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence.\n\nMy advice is to learn more than just the basic mathematics of actuarial work. Focus on understanding the process involved in unwinding some of the more complex problems that exist in industry by applying the actuarial techniques that you learn as you work toward your master's.<\/blockquote>\n\n--><\/p>\n<div class=\"responsive-video\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TB0q5p75wpo?si=TfojBMn5uYRSFgXV&#038;rel=0\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":16254,"template":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/2842"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/profile"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16254"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/2842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98828,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/2842\/revisions\/98828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}