What is your current role and how did you end up in it?
I am Chief Actuary at Advent Underwriting. We are a managing agency within Lloyd's wholly owned by the Canadian firm Fairfax. I am responsible for all aspects of our Actuarial Function, encompassing capital, pricing and reserving.
I started my career in Life Assurance, before moving into General Insurance and then the Lloyd’s market where I have been working for the last 15 years.
What is the defining moment of your career to date?
Am I allowed a couple? The first, very early on, was passing my first actuarial exam. I wasn't sure if this career would be for me and that pass gave me the confidence to think that maybe it was. The second was when I made the switch from Life to General Insurance. I have found general insurance to be a dynamic, exciting environment in which to work and I’ve never looked back.
In your opinion, what prepared you best to take on a Chief Actuary role?
I've been lucky enough to have worked closely with Chief Actuaries at previous firms. Nothing prepares you better for the role than being closely involved and seeing what Chief Actuaries do on a day-to-day basis. It is also beneficial to have a broad range of experience across the main practice areas. With the introduction by regulators of more formal requirements for the Chief Actuary role, this breadth is becoming more important.
What is the biggest challenge you face as Chief Actuary within this market?
On a general front, the range of skills required of Chief Actuaries only seems to increase. Being able to juggle all these balls with multiple stakeholders is a skill in itself.
On a more particular front, in the current soft market, a real concern for most actuaries is making sure our plans and our reserves are realistic and making sure the Board and others understand this, whilst still contributing to taking the company forward. Luckily, here at Advent we have a very progressive Executive team who create the right environment for mature consideration of such issues.
In 2016 what is your aim for defining the actuarial and analytics division within your firm?
As I am relatively new to Advent, my personal short term goal is to understand how we do things here! After that it will be to work with the team to see how we might take things forward in the best way for the business as the demands on actuaries continue to evolve.
When did you first join the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, and what advice would you give to those students looking to emulate your career path?
I joined the Institute in 1992. My first piece of advice is to not be too choosy as to how you start out your actuarial career. Once you have your ‘foot in the door’, many more opportunities will become apparent and your view of that perfect job may also change! The second is to always make time for proactive career development, it's important to always have an eye on the longer term. With hard work and active career management, you can get to wherever you want.
If you had your time again what would you do career-wise?
If actuary is excluded, as I am a big music fan, I would love to run a music shop. Not sure if that's a very tenable career these days though...
Please share your favourite piece of trivia with our readers!
Painting of the Forth Bridge was famously a never-ending task, where workers needed to start reapplying paint as soon as they finished the last coat. However, thanks to the use of new long-lasting paint, this is luckily no longer the case!
|
