Move from GI to Pensions

Move from GI to Life

Hi all - hoping people could share a bit of knowledge / experience / opinions with me please. I'm considering a move from GI to Life (company website seems focused on annuities, retirement mortgages and equity release... but the job advert mentions life insurance)

Has anyone done this move and could share the advantages / disadvantages of Life / GI? Is there anything I can put on my CV or covering letter to increase my chances of securing an interview? Also - what reasons have people given at interviews for these types of moves?

I appreciate that this could be a difficult move to pull off with no 'relevant' experience - so any advice whatsoever would be greatly appreciated!

 

Equally, any information from people working in life insurance generally (with/without having worked elsewhere previously) would be fab... just on what to expect, the work carried out day-to-day, any challenges, etc.

I think the role is within capital management (which is where my GI experience is based).

 

In my experience, it is almost impossible nowadays to move between Life, GI and Pensions. This despite Actuaries doing the same exams apart from the last couple. Frankly, the work is not exactly that different either.

Some sly employers out there might entertain it but you can bet they'll be looking to pay you less for being so generous. Mostly, employers won't be interested, as after all, despite their claims otherwise to be keen to train and develop staff, they don't want to take anyone on who hasn't done the job before, preferably.

In my view it does raise some uncomfortable questions about the Actuary career and qualification if it is almost impossible to change between Life/GI/Pensions in Actuarial, an already narrow field. This really hits home if you're out of work with a Life background yet no one really recruiting for Life (such as right now).

Very sad state of affairs.

 

Move from GI to Pensions (or life ) is very difficult given that they are totally different business. You hardly will have any
experience-acquiered knowladge transferrable. Moving between life and penisons should be much easier.

 

Whatever the hype, the following is true: in the end you just do more number crunching just in a very slightly different context.

The differences between these three areas are vastly hyped. Why?

There are vested interests at play, such as:-

- the lazy managers who would rather not 'train' someone,
or more sinisterly,
- those who have an interest in segregating the job market in this way to restrict opportunities and hence (i) get more desperate candidates which means more ability to push their pay down by making out they're doing the candidate a huge favour by offering a cross over opportunity and (ii) retain existing employees in their tiny little segment of Actuarial work.

NOT FORGETTING:
It is a very convenient way to cut down on job applications by throwing those CV's into the bin of people who don't have the correct segment's experience. This goes contrary to fallacious claims by some on this site that there are vastly more Actuary jobs than job applicants.

 

mpryan, I gather you have worked in all areas so you can make such a point??

From someone who actually worked in both (life and now GI) I can say they are completely different. I'm puzzled why someone in gi would want to move to life - it's usually the other way around.

It's not all number crunching unless you're still in the first year of the job

 

If it is true that the jobs market is being artificially segregated in order to get more desperate candidates, who could in fact do the job just as well, a savvy employer would respond by preferring to employ these candidates rather than candidates with previous experience in the same sector, on the basis that they are getting the same job done at a lower cost. The more this happened, the more the increased demand for desperate candidates and the decreased demand for candidates with previous experience would cause their respective salaries to level out.

I’m not a blind free market worshipper and I know that there is such thing as market failure. However, it usually stems from a lack of information. The idea that employers are knowingly decreasing their pool of good candidates by rejecting some arbitrarily and therefore driving their salary costs up just doesn’t seem to make economic sense.

 

Just to throw in my two pence worth.... I have recently moved from pensions to GI, so it is possible to move between sectors. My advice to anyone who is thinking of switching between areas would be as follows:
- find a good recruiter who is willing to help you do this switch
- make sure you 100% want to do the switch as it will take a bit of extra time to do (firstly in terms of researching and the additional interview prep you'll have to attend compared to if you just want to change jobs in the same line of work & secondly when you get into the new role you may want/need to invest some additional time to "catch up")
- make sure you're sure on why you want to move - this will be a key question in interviews
- dig your heels in when recruiters try to push you to take "great" roles in the field you already work in
- try to read up on the area you want to go into - there is loads of information on the institute website and generally on the internet. There are also free seminars & workshops at the institute you can attend relating to the area you want to move into. Finally consider ordering (& reading!) the core reading for the ST relating to the area you want to move into. All of these things will help demonstrate to potential employers that you're really keen to move into their field

While it's true that employers on the whole would rather not train someone who has come from a different sector (and who can blame them?!) it's also true that employers want to hire people with real enthusiasm for the job - I think this really helped me with my move. I was actually offered 2 roles, so I've not simply moved to a one-off employer who is willing to take a chance. Ultimately it comes down to an employer hiring the best person for the job - make sure you show them it's you in spite of the fact you don't have the relevant experience.

Finally, I didn't expect a pay rise - I was taking a big step back in terms of experience (I had been a pensions actuarial student for 5 years!) but I actually got a £10k pay rise!

So I think in summary it's definitely possible to move between areas of the actuarial profession you just have to be very keen and prepared to do your homework.

 

That sort of thing might get you marks in an Actuarial exam; in the real world we're dealing with cartels.

They restrict you to a third of the job market, it suits them to do so.

 

Only 2 out of the 15 Actuarial exams are different for a GI compared to Life Actuary. The way GI gets hyped up you'd think there were 15 different exams.

 

... and we all know why that is? Seems to be more jobs going and slightly higher salaries in GI at the moment. So these companies get all these Life Actuary types turning up for interviews disingenuously telling them how keen they are about moving to GI, they've wanted to for years and find it fascinating... give me a break. They know full well the real motivations but they do like those who can talk the disingenuous talk with no hint of shame on their face, I can assure you of that.

 

Well, it's 3 exams actually. Most GI trainees would do ST7,ST8 and SA3.

I think you're view is very one-dimensional. You'd swear companies were out to get the applicant. I don't think it's as malicious as you make out. You must have had a terrible experience in your career to have the opinions you have.

 

You probably think the same regarding energy companies?

 

It's all a conspiracy

 

You mock and scoff all you want. I'll just giggle as kids 3-4 years out of Uni think Insurance companies are going to pay you the salaries you've been told until you retire for glorified spreadsheet work.

 

What makes the real difference is the knowledge acqiered through the experience: the software related knowledge, the knowledge of the products, etc...

The pricing is done in a total different way. Product creation is a total different process in life and GI. The reserves are calculated in a completely different way, etc..I really don't think that GI and life are the same in a very slightly different context.

 

I started in pensions, switched to investment and am now in GI, a total time of 3 to 4 years!

The key thing to do I think is to switch earlier on rather than later. I joined GI at management (pay) level so NOT entry level - although I dont manage anyone.

I am working in GI pricing and am doing or have done ST5, ST6 and SA5. Legally you dont need to do any specialised exams to work as an appointed actuary in any of the fields - You only need to do the relevant UK practice module (of P1 to P6, all of which are multiple choice and relatively easy). The specailized exam thing can be the forced decision of the employer although you can pay for your own exams if there is disagreement.

GI pricing...its like sailing in a storm! Having worked in all the fields..pension valuation, investment/ALM and GI pricing...GI pricing is the most TECHNICAL and exciting. Its very short term and risky.

 

This gets better by the post! Remember employers are buyers in the labour market and that if they restrict you they also restrict themselves. So you are saying that we have a cartel of buyers that secures better prices for itself by restricting itself to a third of the market! Forget actuarial exams; how plausible does that sound?

I'm amazed that you can claim to gauge how similar the sectors are by counting exams. As you must know, much of this is because in the UK a lot of life/pensions material is taught to GIers, and vice versa. It's not because the work is the same. Look at the CAS syllabus and you'll see that six out of nine of their exams are GI-specific. So your approach of counting exams is inherently vulnerable to giving arbitrary results.

 

I think many of you have believed the hype, just as they want.

The fact of the matter is that Actuarial work, be it in GI/Investments/Pensions/Life, are all rather similar and nowhere near as difficult as they're hyped up to be.

You are hardly ever expected to come up with anything truly original, mathematically complex or ground-breaking in these jobs. It's mainly following rules or procedures laid out by others. Therefore the context of such work is hardly an issue.

This is why the fear of having to 'train' someone is phoney. There is hardly nothing to train except tell someone to read some rules or look at some spreadsheets.

There are vested interest at play who want to make out GI is some specialized field that Actuaries with a non-GI background can't do.

Sadly, I think I'm wasting my time discussing these things with recent grads with a rose-tinted view of the world. You'll learn one day.

 

I think at this point it is worth quoting the sales pitch for the Actuarial career from the Profession's website :-

http://www.actuaries.org.uk/becoming-actuary/pages/why-become-actuary-0

Nice sales pitch but I can count on one hand the number of people I know of who have rotated between these different areas. Mostly, people remain stuck in whichever field they started in.

 

Not at all.

Ever wondered why these employers are so reluctant about equipping you with skills in Actuarial software such as Prophet or Moses?

They'll all give you the sales pitch about how they're so committed to developing their staff's learning and development. (That sales pitch is almost identical to every company nowadays). They're not. They're only committed to teaching you something for their own benefit, not yours. In reality you have no serious say in the work you would like to do or the skills you'd like to learn.