This is the first cartoon from the Actuaries in the Wild theme — actuaries applying professional thinking to absurd everyday situations.

Most people book a holiday by scrolling through TripAdvisor and picking somewhere with a pool. An actuary builds a risk matrix, plots "lost passport" and "Lily's phone falls in pool" by likelihood and impact, and concludes that Greece has an unacceptable risk profile.

The family's complete lack of surprise is the real punchline. Beth has been through this before. She already knows they're going to Greece — she just has to wait for Patrick to exhaust his analysis first.

The Politics Actuary is a weekly cartoon series about actuaries, AI, the profession, and the absurdities of overregulation. It follows a dad who can't switch off his professional brain, a family who've learned to live with it, and an inexplicable pet crocodile.

Any resemblance to real actuaries is entirely intentional.

Previous cartoons: #1 Record Investment | #2 Y-Axis Trick | #3 Prompt Engineering | #4 Transparency Request | #5 Define Everyone | #6 Long-Term Assumption | #7 Excel Relapse