Insurance graduate schemes Industry Guides

Insurance Graduate Schemes

Insurance graduate schemes offer a great route into a large and varied industry. There are so many different areas within insurance, from underwriting to claim, risk management and much more.

What Is Insurance?

Insurance is a service that helps businesses and people when they need it most. It is a multi-billion pound industry that offers a challenging and interesting career path. From home insurance to car insurance, holiday, pet and other types of insurance, the key goal is to keep you protected against financial risks should an accident or incident occur. Here is a list of the main types of insurance:

General insurance: This offers cover for damage or loss but does not include life insurance. Product examples include travel, motor, pet, health and home insurance.

Commercial/corporate insurance: This protects organisations from unforeseen circumstances, for instance, theft, negligence, property damage etc. Depending on the level of coverage you get it may also include compensation for employee injuries.

Life insurance: This is taken out to financially protect loved ones in the case of a premature death.

Personal insurance: This protects an individual and includes vehicle insurance and health.

Reinsurance: This serves as a risk management strategy as insurance for insurers. For example, if an insurer sells a policy to a client, they can seek reinsurance from another insurance company. This protects insurance companies if paying out would become too much of a financial strain. This could potentially happen if a high volume of claims are made at the same time, for instance in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

Insurance Graduate Schemes and Jobs

There is a diverse range of careers available within insurance, let’s explore some of the graduate schemes and jobs available to you:

Graduate underwriter: As a graduate underwriter you will be responsible for analysing the risk within insurance proposals. Based on this, you will then need to determine policy terms and calculate premiums taking into consideration actuarial, statistical and background information.

Claims management: This role will include managing policy claims and progressing these matters. This could involve managing the claimant and assessing whether a claim is valid. For example, pinpointing anything that may mean the full settlement can’t be paid.

Business development, finance and sales: These roles offer a varied career path depending on which area you’d like to work in. From analysing the business's finances to finding new, innovative business opportunities and selling the service you provide, there is so much to offer.

Insurance broker: An insurance broker works on behalf of the client to select and provide the best insurance products, from an insurance company that offers the best premiums.

Actuary: This involves evaluating, managing and advising on financial risks, as well as completing forecasts and managing funds.

Loss adjuster: During this role, you are responsible for assessing the policyholder’s loss due to a claim, for example, loss of income to an individual who was injured in a car accident. It is a loss adjuster’s job to check the validity of the claim. If the claim is being disputed, you would need to identify how the loss was caused.

Product manager: Product managers create, test and launch products within the insurance industry to different markets. It typically involves ensuring products comply with the regulator’s requirements and delivering sales forecasting.

Operations: Working in operations is at the heart of the organisation. You could be offering support for people, operations, budgets, product delivery and strategy.

Supporting roles: There is a wide range of supporting roles within the insurance industry, from technology specialists to HR and marketing professionals plus many more.

Useful Degrees

Many employers are open to hiring graduates from all degree disciplines, however, they may request a numerate or business related degree. These vary from employer to employer so it’s essential to check the job specification to see whether you match the requirements set. There is a wide range of degrees that would be useful for a career in insurance. These include:

  • Accounting
  • Business
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Law
  • Management
  • Mathematics / Statistics / Actuarial Science / Investment Analysis

Postgraduate Study

If you’re looking to expand your knowledge through further study, there are a variety of postgraduate courses available. These include:

  • Actuarial science
  • Financial economics
  • Risk management and insurance
  • Insurance law

Insurance Skills Graduate Employers Look For

To start your dream graduate career in insurance, you not only need a degree qualification but employers desire a wide and varied skill set including industry specific and soft skills.

Here is a list of the key skills employers look for:

  • Literacy and numeracy
  • Time management and organisation
  • Communication
  • Teamwork
  • Problem solving
  • Critical and analytical thinking
  • Information gathering, evaluation and synthesis
  • Interpersonal skills
  • Adaptability

Insurance is a large and growing industry. It offers a myriad of opportunities for recent and soon to be graduates. You could be working for a wide range of employers, these include:

Insurance companies: Insurance companies provide customers with insurance services and products. This is typically done via a price comparison website such as Compare the Market or an insurance broker.

Examples of employers include: Admiral, LV=, Hastings Direct, Aviva, Direct Line Group.

Insurance brokers: Insurance brokers aim to help clients to find the best insurance products and premiums, which meet the customers needs. They act independently on behalf of the customer and insurance company.

Examples of employers include: Marshmallow, Aon, Willis Towers Watson.

Specialist consultancy: These types of organisations handle claims for the London markets as well as specialising in life assurance, pensions and loss adjusters.

Retail banks and supermarkets: Supermarkets and banks both offer insurance services and products.

Examples of employers include: Lloyds Bank, Tesco, Coop.

London market trades: The London markets are critical to insurance trading. They trade insurance policies globally and specialise mainly on reinsurance, high exposure risks and general insurance.

Examples of employers include: Lloyd’s of London.

Insurance Skills Graduate Employers Look ForInsurance Graduate Jobs and Schemes:

What You Need to Know Insurance graduate schemes are usually more structured with training as opposed to graduate jobs. Typically, graduate schemes for large insurance employers have annual openings with deadlines from November to January. However, in most cases, you’ll be able to apply from the end of your second year (June-onwards) but the earlier the better as spaces are competitive!

Graduate schemes typically offer the opportunity to rotate around different areas of the industry so you can gain a wealth of experience before deciding which role is the right fit for you. Some graduate schemes lead to further qualifications too as you may be required to undertake an examination from industry professional bodies.

On the other hand, graduate insurance jobs are usually less structured and you will likely progress in your role rather than having a programme in place that requires you to move around different areas of the business. You won’t start applying for graduate insurance jobs until after you’ve graduated and the application process isn’t normally as rigorous as a graduate scheme.

Professional Qualifications to Help Advance Your Career

Regulator’s expect and require you to ‘attain and maintain competence’ in the insurance industry, however, in general insurance, there are no specific on the job, professional qualifications you need. Many companies do encourage employees to commit to continuing professional development (CPD). This could mean undertaking one of the below qualifications:

Certificate in Insurance (with the Chartered Insurance Institute, known as the CII) Diploma in Insurance (with the CII) Advanced Diploma in Insurance (with the CII) CILA Certificate (with the Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters) If you want to work in actuaries, you will be required to complete a professional qualification. The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries advises that most graduates begin their journey with a 2:1 or above in a maths-based degree and then undertake actuarial exams once they have secured a graduate position.

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