Zoe Bolton, from Bolton Associates, interviews Gaynore Moss, Sompo Canopius Group
What is your current role and how did you end up there?
Group Chief Risk Officer at Sompo Canopius. I started at a pension consultancy before switching to general insurance and taking a job in the London insurance market. I’ve done a variety of Chief Actuary roles in the market (Beazley and Liberty Syndicates) before joining Sompo Canopius in 2008 as Chief Actuary and then being appointed Group Chief Risk Officer in January this year.
What’s been the defining moment of your career so far?
There have been so many fun and interesting projects that it’s hard to pick just one. My top three would be:
• Being the first woman to win General Insurance Actuary of the year in 2014.
• Successful implementation of Solvency II
• Successful purchase and integration of Omega Managing Agents
What has prepared you best for a CA role?
The best preparation for the Chief Actuary role is to have a real curiosity about how companies and insurance companies work and the key drivers of profit and loss, together with an ability to talk (and listen!) to anybody in the organisation. The communication element is especially important in the risk space to ensure you pick up all the information you need.
What’s your biggest challenge as CA in this market?
The biggest challenge is teaching the next generation of Chief Actuaries. When I started, actuarial teams were very small and everybody got to work in all areas. Nowadays people tend to specialise in one area from an early stage which may stop them having in-depth experience of the other elements to give them a more rounded overview.
In 2016 what are you aiming to do with the actuarial function in your firm?
Team rotation! To give reserving a view of the capital and risk and vice versa.
To keep working on our communication and presentations to other areas. It’s no good having the most perfect answer if no one can understand it. This is an area where you can always do more and the pace of regulatory change means there is always lots to talk about. Our industry is facing a number of challenges. Rates are low, there is a lot of capital about, new distribution models and new technologies, as well as emerging risks such as cyber. This close communication between risk, actuarial and underwriting is crucial in overcoming them.
When did you join the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and what advice would you give young actuaries?
1991. Make sure it’s the career for you before you start and if it is – go for it! It can be a challenging career, particularly with the exams, but very rewarding.
If you had your time again, what would you do career wise?
I think I would have liked to be a supermodel! But more realistically, if I hadn’t been an actuary, I would probably have been a research chemist.
Favourite item of trivia?
More people are killed by falling coconuts than shark attacks.
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