What a calculator does, and what a retained actuary adds
By Shimmy Katscher, ACIA, ASA and Mike Austin, FCIA, FSA · Updated September 4, 2026
A calculator and a retained actuary do different things. A calculator applies established methodology to the inputs you enter and returns a figure traceable to every one of them. A retained actuary gives a signed, independent opinion, and can explain and defend it.
This is general background rather than advice on any particular file.
What a calculator produces
Lawyers use a calculator like DamageIQ for early case assessment, and in negotiation and mediation, where you have to be able to show how you arrived at a figure and to change one assumption at a time as you go. It is also useful for sensitivity testing: watching the total move as the discount rate, retirement age, or life expectancy change. A firm with a lot of files can run all of them the same way, on the same method and the same data.
The output is a calculation, not an expert opinion. You set the assumptions, and the figure is only ever a function of what you entered.
What a retained actuary adds
What a calculator cannot give you is an opinion. A retained actuary signs one and can be cross-examined on it.
That matters when a signed report has to go in as evidence or support an expert affidavit. It matters when the actuarial assumptions or the method are in issue and someone has to defend them under cross-examination. It matters when the facts are complex or novel enough that a standard model does not capture them.
Assumptions that belong to other disciplines, a life expectancy or an earning capacity among them, are established by the experts in those fields. An actuary values the stream that follows from them.
How the two relate
A calculator gives you an early number, lets you test how it moves as the assumptions change, and gives you something to negotiate from. A retained actuary signs the opinion when a file goes to trial or the numbers are genuinely in dispute.
DamageIQ was built and tested by the actuaries at Quantis Valuations.
Try it
The free PV Multiplier calculator produces actuarial present-value factors, and a full DamageIQ file covers loss of income and future cost of care. For the method behind the numbers, see How present-value damages are calculated in Canada.
By Mike Austin, FCIA, FSA. Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries and the Society of Actuaries.