Actuarial Intern Review

My projects in the team are reserving projects. Using previous data, I work in Excel to calculate how much money clients need to reserve to pay out for future claims arising from insurance policies they've already written. Some of the things I do include rolling over files from previous years for recurring clients so that we can use it for this year's projects, filling out templates in Excel that help use calculate how much money the client should reserve, and correcting any errors in the files. All the interns also had to do a BRG project, so I would spend a couple of hours a week working on this too. All the interns in my team have to deliver a presentation about a topic in general insurance to the rest of the team.

I had never really used Excel much before, so I got to learn a lot of Excel skills as I use it every day! I feel that I have developed my skills of working in a professional environment a lot, for example things like attending and participating in meetings, using Outlook. I have also improved and developed my teamwork and presenting skills from the few presentations I've had to do. I've learnt more about how to be organised too.

I feel that I was given a fair amount of responsibility. Most of the time I'd be working on real client projects and had similar work to what a new graduate would do. However, all the client work I did was checked before it was sent, which is normal. I also didn't directly communicate with clients myself (e.g. by email). Personally, I liked this level of responsibility because it meant that I could learn things without feeling scared about messing up something important.

In my opinion I received a lot of support and guidance. I would have weekly catch ups with my line manager, but I would also message them throughout the week if I had any questions. I also had a buddy who was a graduate so I could ask them any questions I had that I didn't want to ask my line manager - it was also easier to relate to them since they're only one level above me. The wider team was also really helpful with any questions I had and someone in the team sat down with me for an hour or two and talked me through all the work they're currently doing and let me ask them my questions. However I found the Early Careers Team slow to respond, but this wasn't really a problem for me.

We had a few socials (paid for by Aon) throughout the internship with the team, those were really fun. The general atmosphere at work was mostly good. I also liked the atmosphere of our team meetings and the atmosphere at lunchtime. However, the culture seemed to depend a lot based on what team you were in - some interns in other teams were working late every single day. On the other hand, I always worked for 7 hours a day (so 8 hours at the office including lunch break).

I'm happy I chose this internship, I got everything that I wanted out of it and it was a lot better than I thought it would be. I enjoyed having real responsibilities and I felt happy with the support I got. Also, when I was applying for internships, I think this was one of the longer internships I found. It was 9 weeks long, whereas some internships were only 4 weeks long. I felt that this meant I had a lot more time to learn things, so overall I did enjoy it and felt that I learned a lot from it.

Yes

Do a lot of research on Aon before the assessment centre / interview. Also do a lot of research into insurance and into the role you're applying for so that you can answer questions about it in the interview. Know what you want to get out of the internship and discuss it with your manager to ensure that you get the full benefit of the internship. Ensure to ask all the questions you have and don't be afraid to ask people.