intern broker in Crisis Management Review

I really enjoyed the internship, in the way that I was given lots of interesting things to do. My favourite included shadowing brokers and underwriters in the LLoyds insurance market. Here by observing the negotiating skills, understadning the technical terms such as subscription markets and facilities I gained invaluable knowledge. Other key parts of my internship included the projects given to me that gave me exposure to insurance contracts and documents that I could digest and research further, independently.

The colleagues were very friendly and inclusive. Although at times, there was occasions where they were under intense working pressure and had little time to assist me, this was a minor issue. Overall, I feel the work that I did was strongly valued by the team, but that inevitably this is relative to the experience I had. I could not help them in their work to the same extent as other jobs, due to my inability of knowledge in the desired area and lack of responsibility.

I was given clear guidance by my manager who helped me to arrange shadowing with underwriters, and assigned to me suitable projects that involved sufficient work and that enabled me to learn more about the London insurance market. Similarly, my team when shadowing them helped guide me and give me useful information and teaching about what they were doing and why.

I was kept relatively busy, through bot the tasks set to me by my manager and team which were often long tasks such as benchmarking. Although, I did have to be proactive in searching for work occasionally, with a few days where work was limited, but this was more reflective of August being a time where much work is administrative and cannot be done by someone at my level. Furthermore, there was an additional corporate social responsibility task to do that helped fill in gaps in work.

Responsibility varied, with most tasks that I completed being internal functions, with little external responsibility. Having been given mostly excel tasks about finding key trends in the data and benchmarking tools, they were not a crucial responsibility, but equally were very useful for the team to move forward. Other tasks included scanning and administrative tasks that lacked real responsibility, but still had to be done correctly and with care.

The internship will give me the transferable skills of gaining a greater appreciataion and understanding of the workplace, in cooperating with colleagues from all backgrounds, ages and experience and in improving my confidence overall. During the corporate social responsibly project it has also improved my teamwork and presentation skills that are essential for my degree and are assessed as so.

The atmosphere in the office was very friendly and chatty, with laughing and happy employees. Little silence and awkwardness, which made it a good social environment to work in. It also had booths and rooms to use if you needed space to work in silence. Its social areas and free coffee areas also created a homely atmosphere.

Internship was organised well, in regard to compulsory projects such as the CSR. Otherwise it was very much dependant on the team and manager that you were with and how much time they focused on you. There were periods with little work, as can be expected as much as there were others with much more. Overall, it was planned relatively well, but would recommend more compulsory activities to ease pressure off managers and teams.

In terms of personal development, the firm has invested lots of time and money in developing my basic knowledge of Aon, the London market and Broking. These are core areas to focus on and often for most people in insurance take a long time to fully understand and acquire. This although not complete- it has given me a base to then progress from and improve.

Future employment prospects are promising on the basis that you can be offered a graduate job after the internship, if you perform well. Otherwise, promotion is frequent, with Aon being a growing business, and always diversifying products and services. They also help towards CII qualifications that are beneficial employment progression.

Yes, most if not all of the other interns were very social and keen to go out, meet after-work for a drink or to chat at lunch. All were very much on the same wavelength and this mad adapting to Aon very easy. It was work with a university attitude to it.

Very expensive, on the basis that London is an expensive city, and the city of London is notorious for very wealthy people and thus general restaurants and pubs are costly, especially for an internship wage. This made It difficult to go out. Similarly, living in London is also very expensive and overinflated and not value for money.

The nightlife is social and very good, with lots of pubs, restaurants and bars, where colleagues would meet for a drink after work. Up the road is Shoreditch so this is a good area for clubbing and for events such as watching the football world cup. The best is the Aon bar which is a subsidised bar under Aon for employees and provides a big screen with sport on.

There are a few opportunities to be involved in Aon outside of work, such as charities, mental health groups, diversity and inclusion societies that are involved in more community based approaches and engagement. Other than societies not mentioned, there was little other engagement detailed to me that I could get involved in.