Hi, I have been working in a pensions consultancy for 2 years now and want to move into life insurance. I am a bit worried by the amount of pensions work slowly drying up in the office, and the type of work that is left is not appealing to me. The pensions environment is slowly becoming more and more rigid and the type of work that is left makes me feel more like a pensions lawyer than an actuary! I hear a lot about people moving from life insurance into pensions, but hear very little of the opposite happening. How can I increase my chances of moving into life insurance? Is such a move possible? Im desperate to make the move before making such a transition becomes too difficult. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Of course a change is possible. Maybe the way to do it is look for a company that writes lots of annuity business and personal pensions. This way you can use your knowledge of say longevity issues, and why Personal pensions can be a viable alternative. Look at the wider skills you have gained in consultancy and bring those out in interviews. Happy hunting
You're right, not many pople seem to move in that direction. Any way, I made that very move about a year ago, after 2 and a half years in pensions so I was pretty much in your position. A few things from my experience... I would expect a drop in pay of a few thousand pa. You are likely to work more like 9-5 in your new job rather than the 8-6 or more that you may be used to so your hourly rate will probably go up if you can console yourself that way. The work may or may not be interesting depending on what exactly you end up doing but I guarantee it won't be as bad as your pensions colleagues are currently telling you I have also been pleasantly surprised at how friendly/outgoing/non-geeky the people are in my new job. This was not what I expected after speaking to colleagues at the time before the move. If I'm honest I'd say the work requires less brainpower than pensions consulting - although I dare say that would change once you start to move upwards at a life company - they can get pretty complicated I think but that's not my problem for the moment! Probably just worth saying that you'll have to think about skills you can bring to a life company in an interview. All the ususal rubbish like a good eye for detail, understanding how the computer models you use work (rather than just hitting 'run') and being able to justify movements between different runs will all be useful. You'll probably be very used to managing your workloads and deadlines so bring that up too. Your reasons for moving are genuine and they can't argue with those but they'l certainly come up in an interview. Good luck!
Thanks for your comments everybody, much appreciated. I am a little bit worried about moving into a company that writes a lot of annuities or does a lot of buyout business as I fear that I may never be able to break away from my pensions tag. Isn't there a danger of being forever labelled as 'the pensions guy' making it difficult to gain the more traditional Life actuarial skills? Geoff - thanks for the help. Very useful advice! Its nice to see that people do actually move from pensions to Life (and ignore the warnings of their pensions colleagues! After all, most of them have never worked in Life anyway! ). Was wondering if you moved into a traditional Life role or a cross-over role (such as annuities or buy-outs)? I can live with things like a pay drop as long as I can get the experiences that I'm looking for! Thanks in advance!
I moved into a traditional life role - I'm in the financial reporting team for the moment and you get moved round to new teams every couple of years - I think that's fairly standard for life companies. We do have some annuities business but I don't find myself working on those any more than on say term assurances or whole of life policies etc etc so my background is not affecting the type of work I am given now. I'm really glad I made the move - a consultancy was just not for me. I didn't want to be spending my whole life in the office working and now I don't have to. Oh and the study package is great now - I can have a big block of study time during the exam period rather than a measly two days before each exam which helps loads. Definitely worth checking out the study package before you accept any job.
