What does CAS Exam 5 cover?

CAS Exam 5 (Basic Techniques for Ratemaking and Estimating Claim Liabilities) splits close to evenly between ratemaking and reserving. The ratemaking half covers exposure bases and data aggregation (8-12%), premium and loss trend and development adjustments (10-14%), overall rate level indications by the pure premium and loss ratio methods (12-16%), classification and alternative rating including ILFs, deductibles, and individual risk rating (8-12%), and ratemaking principles, implementation, and regulation (5-8%). The reserving half covers reserving data and development triangles with their diagnostics (12-16%), unpaid claim estimation techniques including development, expected claims, Bornhuetter-Ferguson, Benktander, Cape Cod, frequency-severity, and Berquist-Sherman (18-22%), and recoveries, LAE, and reserve evaluation (12-16%).

Is CAS Exam 5 harder than MAS-I and MAS-II?

It is different rather than strictly harder, and most candidates find the transition itself is the difficulty. MAS-I and MAS-II are 4-hour multiple-choice exams where a correct selection earns the point. Exam 5 is a written-answer exam where you produce the answer, show labeled work, state assumptions, and write short explanations, all under partial credit. The mathematics in Exam 5 is lighter than MAS-II. The volume of readable syllabus material and the demand for written communication are both much higher. Candidates who prepare for Exam 5 the way they prepared for the preliminaries (read, then drill recognition) tend to underperform.

How many hours should you study for CAS Exam 5?

The CAS does not publish an official hour recommendation. Candidate and prep-provider consensus is 300 to 350 hours for someone who recently passed MAS-II and works in P&C pricing or reserving, 350 to 450 hours for someone with the preliminaries done but no P&C work exposure, and 150 to 250 hours for a resit (weighted almost entirely toward written production rather than re-reading). Most candidates plan 16 weeks at 20 to 30 hours per week. A large share of that time should be spent writing full answers under time, not reading.

How is a written-answer exam like CAS Exam 5 graded?

Graders award partial credit against a point allocation published for each question, so a question is rarely all or nothing. The published examiner's reports include sample answers that earned credit plus grader commentary on what candidates commonly did wrong, and those sample answers are the practical scoring standard. Two habits follow from that. Label every intermediate step so a grader can award credit even when the final number is off, and answer the specific verb in the prompt, since "calculate", "briefly describe", and "justify" each carry their own points. Pace by point value rather than by question count.

What free CAS Exam 5 resources does FreeFellow offer?

504 original practice questions across all eight topic areas with step-by-step solutions and per-choice notes, 326 past-exam walkthrough questions from published CAS Exam 5 papers covering Spring 2013 through Fall 2019 (reproduced alongside the examiner's report sample answers and grader commentary, with attribution to the CAS-published source), 38 written lessons, a downloadable formula sheet, and an original mock sitting of 24 constructed-response questions worth 52 points over 4 hours. All of that is free with no trial period, no question cap, and no credit card. AI grading of your written answers is the Fellow-tier addition. FreeFellow is not affiliated with the Casualty Actuarial Society.

CAS Exam 5 Study Guide (Basic Techniques for Ratemaking and Estimating Claim Liabilities, 2026)

CAS Exam 5 (Basic Techniques for Ratemaking and Estimating Claim Liabilities): 2026 Study Guide

Exam 5 is the first upper-level exam in the CAS path and the first written-answer exam a candidate meets. It carries two half-syllabuses in one sitting: ratemaking (setting a rate that is not excessive, not inadequate, and not unfairly discriminatory) and reserving (estimating what the insurer still owes on claims already incurred). Almost every P&C actuarial job sits on one side of that line, so Exam 5 is where the syllabus starts to look like the work.

FreeFellow hosts the full Exam 5 stack free: 504 original practice questions, 326 past-exam walkthroughs covering Spring 2013 through Fall 2019, 38 written lessons, a formula sheet, and an original mock sitting (24 constructed-response questions, 52 points, 4 hours). No trial, no signup required to browse, no credit card.

Start practicing Exam 5 (504 free questions)

Note

FreeFellow is not affiliated with the Casualty Actuarial Society. CAS does not endorse, promote, review, or warrant the accuracy or quality of FreeFellow products or services. The past-exam walkthroughs reproduce the published examiner's report sample answers and grader commentary with attribution to the CAS-published source.

Where Exam 5 Sits in the CAS Path

Exam 5 is the fifth exam on the road to Associate (ACAS) and Fellow (FCAS), and the format break point:

Exam	Administered by	Format
Exam 1/P (Probability)	Joint SOA & CAS	3 hours, 30 MCQ
Exam 2/FM (Financial Mathematics)	Joint SOA & CAS	3 hours, 35 MCQ
MAS-I (Modern Actuarial Statistics I)	CAS only	4 hours, 45 MCQ
MAS-II (Modern Actuarial Statistics II)	CAS only	4 hours, 45 MCQ
Exam 5 (Basic Techniques for Ratemaking and Estimating Claim Liabilities)	CAS only	Written-answer
Exam 6 (Regulation and Financial Reporting)	CAS only	Written-answer
Exam 7 (Estimation of Policy Liabilities, Insurance Company Valuation, and ERM)	CAS only	Written-answer
Exam 8 (Advanced Ratemaking)	CAS only	Written-answer
Exam 9 (Financial Risk and Rate of Return)	CAS only	Written-answer

Everything through MAS-II is multiple choice. From Exam 5 forward, you write the answer and a grader reads it. Exam 5 is also the foundation for what follows: Exam 7 extends its reserving techniques, Exam 8 its classification and individual risk rating material. Weak Exam 5 fundamentals do not stay contained at Exam 5.

What Exam 5 Tests

The CAS content outline weights the two halves close to evenly, ratemaking at 45-55% and estimating claim liabilities at 45-55%. FreeFellow splits that into the eight topic areas the question bank and lessons are organized around:

Section	Weight	Topics
Ratemaking Data & Exposures	8-12%	Exposure base criteria, written / earned / unearned / in-force exposures, aggregation by policy year, calendar year, accident year, report year
Premium, Loss & Trend Adjustments	10-14%	Premium at current rate level (extension of exposures, parallelogram), one-step and two-step premium trend, loss development and loss trend without double counting the overlap, ALAE, large-loss and catastrophe loading
Overall Rate Level Indications	12-16%	Pure premium and loss ratio methods and why they must reconcile, permissible loss ratio, all-variable vs fixed-and-variable expense provisions, profit and contingency, credibility and its complement
Classification & Alternative Rating	8-12%	Univariate class methods (pure premium, loss ratio, adjusted pure premium), minimum bias and the move to GLMs, ILFs, deductibles, territories, individual risk rating (experience, schedule, retrospective)
Principles, Implementation & Regulation	5-8%	The CAS Statement of Principles Regarding Property and Casualty Insurance Ratemaking, indicated vs selected rate change, off-balance, non-pricing levers, prior approval vs file-and-use
Reserving Data & Development Triangles	12-16%	Triangle construction, age-to-age factor selection, tail factors, and the diagnostics (paid to reported, closure rates, average case outstanding, frequency and severity) that flag a changing environment
Unpaid Claim Estimation Techniques	18-22%	Development on paid and reported, expected claims, Bornhuetter-Ferguson, Benktander, Cape Cod, frequency-severity including the disposal rate technique, Berquist-Sherman, method selection
Recoveries, LAE & Reserve Evaluation	12-16%	Salvage and subrogation, reinsurance recoverables and ceded triangles, ALAE and ULAE reserving, evaluating an estimate through actual vs expected and retrospective testing

Unpaid claim estimation is the largest area at 18-22%, and it rewards judgment over recall. Six methods applied to one triangle produce six answers. The exam rarely asks which is correct in the abstract. It gives a scenario (case reserve strengthening, a settlement speed-up, a coverage change) and asks which method survives that distortion and why. Learn every method with its failure mode attached.

Written Answer Changes the Study Method

This is the thing most first-time candidates get wrong. The preliminaries reward recognition. Exam 5 rewards production.

Dimension	MAS-I / MAS-II	Exam 5
Answer form	Select one of five choices	Write the answer and show the work
Credit	All or nothing per item	Partial credit, allocated by point
What earns points	The correct selection	Correct method, labeled work, stated assumptions, and the explanation the prompt asked for
Grading standard	Answer key	The published examiner's report sample answers and grader commentary
Typical failure	Arithmetic slip	Answering a "discuss" or "justify" prompt with only a number
Pacing unit	Minutes per question	Minutes per point

Three consequences for practice:

Read the verb. "Calculate" wants a number with visible work. "Briefly describe" wants two or three labeled points, not a paragraph. "Justify" wants a reason tied to the data in front of you. Those carry separate points, so a perfect calculation with the justification missing is a partial score.

Label every step. A grader awarding partial credit has to find the step to award it. Unlabeled intermediates earn nothing once the answer is wrong, while a labeled development factor or trend period often earns credit anyway.

Treat the examiner's report as the scoring standard, not an answer key. It shows the length, detail, and vocabulary that scored. Candidates write too much on explanation parts and too little on assumption parts, and the sample answers fix both faster than re-reading does.

How Many Hours You Need

The CAS does not publish an official hour recommendation. Candidate and prep-provider consensus for Exam 5:

Recently passed MAS-II, working in P&C pricing or reserving: 300 to 350 hours
Preliminaries done, no P&C work exposure: 350 to 450 hours
Resitting after a near miss: 150 to 250 hours, weighted almost entirely toward written production

Most candidates plan 16 weeks at 20 to 30 hours per week. The reading load is heavier than any preliminary, and the two halves are close to independent, so a candidate who runs short on time runs short on the reserving half.

Common Trap

Spending the study period reading rather than writing. Candidates who put 250 of their 350 hours into the source texts and 100 into producing answers reliably underperform candidates who invert that split. You do not earn points for recognizing that a Berquist-Sherman adjustment applies. You earn them for writing the adjusted triangle, labeling it, and stating the assumption behind it. Start writing full answers by week 4, not week 12.

What's Free on FreeFellow

Question bank (entirely free). 504 original practice questions across all eight topic areas, with step-by-step solutions and per-choice notes. Use these first to make the mechanics automatic: a triangle you can lay out quickly, an indication you can structure without hunting for the formula.

Past-exam walkthroughs. 326 questions from published CAS Exam 5 papers, Spring 2013 through Fall 2019, reproduced alongside the examiner's report sample answers and grader commentary with attribution to the CAS-published source. The highest-value asset here, because that report is the standard your answer is measured against.

38 written lessons. Full syllabus coverage with worked examples and figures: triangle diagnostics, on-level premium, indication walk-throughs, method comparisons under distortion, regulation.

Formula sheet. A dedicated Exam 5 reference at /free/cas-exam-5/formula-sheet/, covering exposure and premium adjustments, the indication formulas, credibility, and the estimation methods. Downloadable as a print-ready PDF.

Original mock sitting. 24 constructed-response questions worth 52 points over 4 hours, authored by FreeFellow rather than reproduced, so it stays clean after the past papers are used up. It runs at /cas-exam5.

Fellow tier (optional, $59 / quarter or $149 / year per track). AI grading of your written answers against the point allocation, spaced-repetition flashcards, topic-level analytics, and a study plan. Everything named above stays free.

A 16-Week Plan

Weeks 1-3: Ratemaking Data, Exposures, and Adjustments. Exposure bases and aggregation, then premium at current rate level and the trend adjustments. Drill parallelogram and extension-of-exposures until they are mechanical. Watch the trend and development overlap.

Weeks 4-6: Overall Rate Level and Classification. Pure premium and loss ratio methods side by side until you can reconcile them, then expense provisions, credibility, class methods, ILFs, deductibles, individual risk rating. Start writing full answers here, not just calculating.

Weeks 7-8: Principles, Implementation, and Regulation. The lowest-weight area (5-8%) and the fastest points on the paper, since the questions are largely list-and-explain. Memorize the ratemaking principles and the implementation levers cold.

Weeks 9-11: Reserving Data, Triangles, and Diagnostics. Triangle construction, factor selection, tail factors, and the diagnostic set. Practice stating what changed in the book before touching a method.

Weeks 12-14: Unpaid Claim Estimation and Recoveries. The heaviest area (18-22%). Development, expected claims, Bornhuetter-Ferguson, Benktander, Cape Cod, frequency-severity, Berquist-Sherman, writing out where each fails. Then recoveries, ALAE and ULAE, reserve evaluation.

Weeks 15-16: Past Papers and the Mock. Work the 326 walkthroughs under time, compare each answer to the examiner's report sample answer, and score against the point allocation rather than by feel. Finish with the 4-hour mock.

Start Practicing

CAS Exam 5 free practice questions (504 original questions plus 326 past-exam walkthroughs)
CAS Exam 6-U.S. Study Guide for the other upper-level written-answer exam
CAS Exam MAS-II Study Guide for candidates still on the preliminaries
SOA vs CAS: which actuarial path is right for you for candidates still choosing
Best free actuarial exam prep resources for 2026

FreeFellow is not affiliated with the Casualty Actuarial Society. CAS does not endorse, promote, review, or warrant the accuracy or quality of FreeFellow products or services.