A day in the life of an Actuary
As an actuary, my work’s highly varied and technical – there’s no such thing as a typical day. In this career, you need to be a skilled problem solver and communicator, with good numeracy skills – the role can be quite mathematical.
Xavier John , Actuarial Assistant
Current Position:
Actuarial Assistant
Biography:
There are three main functions in Amlin’s actuarial work. One is Pricing – which involves working closely with the underwriters, using statistical techniques to help determine the premium to charge for individual or groups of insurance risks. The second is Reserving, which involves calculating the amount of premium that needs to be set aside and held in reserve to pay outstanding claims.
The third is Capital Modelling/ Dynamic Financial Analysis - which is the field I work in. It’s a relatively new field with growing importance, and aims to assess the amount of capital the company must hold to protect itself from future extreme losses.
This is done with the use of a sophisticated model using Monte Carlo simulation.
As well as being a regulatory requirement, Capital Modelling helps the company to manage risks and make effective business planning decisions.
Some examples of projects I have worked on recently include reinsurance review - assessing the benefit of our reinsurance contracts from a pricing, capital, and profit smoothing perspective. I’ve worked on Risk Tolerance dashboards - updating the model, and preparing a report illustrating the levels of risk and how close we are to our maximum tolerances.
I’ve also been involved in Parameterisation uncertainty. This is all about improving our parameterisation process, incorporating the additional uncertainty involved with estimating parameters from historical data.