Actuary

A fundamental part of operating a life insurance company is understanding the risks that will affect the profits we earn on existing business and the price we need to charge on new business.

We use experience analysis to understand the factors that have affected past events and use this, together with available market data and research on trends and future differences, to form a view of what future experience might be across insurance risks (like mortality, persistency and longevity) and financial risks (like bond default risk, property growth rates (which affect mortgage risk) and different types of inflation). The agreed set of assumptions about future experience feed into our financial reporting and solvency measurement, and also into our costing basis which supports our commercial, pricing activity on new business. 

The purpose of this role is to be part of the team responsible for undertaking research and developing assumption proposals.

The Team

The Experience Analysis and Assumptions Team reports in to the UKL Actuarial Reporting Lead. It is part of the wider UKL Chief Accounting Officer team.

It is responsible for developing, reviewing and securing agreement to the full set of set of assumptions used in reporting and costing – from undertaking research, specifying and sourcing experience analysis investigations, sourcing market data, though to analyzing results, proposing assumptions and taking them through governance. The team is also responsible for reviewing reporting outputs.

The assumption set is a key component of our reporting and commercial operations, so you’ll operate under a strong risk management and controls framework, ensuring regulatory compliance and high-quality, timely outputs.

Current team members are based in Wellington Row, York but we are very open to new members being based in Bristol.

We are supported by the ASEC team in Poland who provide actuarial and analytical support in the experience analysis process.

The Person

We are looking for a qualified or senior part-qualified actuary to join our team, with a particular focus on supporting the assumption setting process for protection business, initially taking the lead on income protection and group protection products.    

Duties & Responsibilities

• You will support the assumption setting process, taking the lead in specified areas – initially income protection and group protection products. In particular, you will:

  •  specify and review experience analysis investigations, analyses the results and source other market material,

  • develop proposals for the assumption set, and organise expert judgement panels across the business to discuss those proposals

  • specify and source impacts from AFO team, and review the results

  • produce papers for LMASF and CGC (governance committees for reporting and costing assumptions), and liaise with AFO in implementing them

  • respond to audit queries on the assumption set 

  • support taking assumptions through subsequent governance processes, including summary for Audit Committee of the UKL Board

• You will support projects that deepen and broaden Aviva’s understanding of mortality and morbidity, including analysis of external data sets / sources as well as analysis of Aviva’s own experience, and work on improving MI on current year experience

• You will operate, maintain and support the development of systems for analyzing demographic risk (in particular for protection business)

• You will provide timely and reliable support to other areas of the business to help answer their questions on demographic risk

• You will operate under a strong risk management and controls framework, ensuring regulatory compliance

• You will support the high-level review of financial reporting outputs

Skills / Experience Required

• You will be a qualified actuary, or a senior part-qualified actuary with strong skills

• You will have good data handling and analytical skills and be able to work with complex data, identifying themes and trends, building models and interpreting results

• You will be curious and enjoy using your skills and initiative to create new insights

• You will be well-organized, capable of working independently and able to present the results of your work clearly. In particular you will be able to take complex technical concepts and convey them in an easy-to-understand way to suit your audience

• It would be useful if you had experience of producing or using financial reporting and/or solvency results, but this is not essential

What will you get for this role?

• Salary circa £55,000 depending on skills, experience and qualifications

• Generous defined contribution pension scheme

• Annual performance related bonus and pay review

• Holiday allowance of 29 days plus bank holidays and the option to buy/sell up to 5 additional days

• Up to 40% discount for some Aviva products through “My Aviva Extras” plus discounts for Friends and Family. (Some exclusions apply)

• Excellent range of flexible benefits to include a matching share save scheme

Working at Aviva

At Aviva, we’re people with a purpose. To be with you today, for a better tomorrow.

We bring this to life by ensuring managing risk is at the heart of the way we all work. We love people who do the right thing for our customers, and our colleagues. We want people who speak up, who take ownership, and who make good decisions.

The way we do this is important too, we’re all about our people – that’s you – so we can be pretty flexible. If you want to work from home some of the time or change your hours so you can pick up your kids or care for someone in your family, we’re very open to that. In fact, we don’t advertise roles as either part or full time, because we know each person has different needs, just as each business area has different needs. So, it’s up to you to discuss working hours during your interview.

We care deeply about being inclusive and that means we encourage applications from people with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We want our employees to bring their whole self to work and that starts with you.

We’d love it if you could submit your application online. If you require an alternative method of applying, please give Guv a call on 0750 008 7919 or send an email to Guv.johal@aviva.com.

*As defined in The Equality Act 2010*. By ‘minimum criteria’ we mean you should provide us with evidence which demonstrates that you generally meet the level of competence required and have the qualifications, skills or experience defined as essential to perform the role.