Was hoping I could get some general advice from others who have been there in the Insurance sector. Any advice is appreciated I have worked in GI Pricing for the last 2 years, a mixture of Personal and Commerical lines. I don't work for a big firm so although it does involve lots of Emblem modelling, I wouldn't say that the Pricing we do is very sosphisticated; the models are brand new with some sketchy data and we have no price optimisation in place. I do enjoy my job however. I am considering a role at a Reinsurance firm for mainly Reserving with a bit of Pricing, (london market small team) - is this a good move? Is Reinsurance reserving boring? Should I instead focus on getting a Pricing job at a bigger firm with better data and more sophisticated techniques to round out my Pricing knowledge first? How many disciplines in GI should I be familar with by the time I qualify (in 1-2 years)? Do I really need to know GLM Pricing, Price Optimisation etc, Reserving AND Capital modelling or should I specialise? Where does Reinsurance fit into all of this?! Sorry for the text wall - I am just unsure about the next step. Seems like getting the grad job was the easy bit and actually thinking about your long term career direction is harder :-(
It depends on your general objectives, e.g. do you want to stay technical/specialised or do you want move more into management/business areas? These types of questions start to come up after 3-5 years of working I would say.
To be honest I'm not really sure right now, but I think I would prefer the more management/buisness side of things.
I'm in a similar position to you. GI Pricing, not the biggest name although the pricing we do is sophisticated. A year ago I would've said that I would like to get experience of more than one discipline by the time I qualify (preferably all the main GI areas). I no longer have that view. I'm quite comfortable and happy to qualify as a Pricing Actuary now having little or no experience in reserving or capital. Came to that view as I enjoy Pricing and realise there's a lot of opportunities for good pricing actuaries.
Then you need to be thinking differently. Are there opportunities for growth, development, promotion? Would you like your bosses job, or can you see other (more senior) positions you would like to be able to move into? Do you like working there, are you 'liked'? both socially and in terms of work (e.g. reviews, but also who do people turn to for important/tough work?)
