Jasmine, an Intern at Allianz

Tell us a bit about yourself and your university experience so far?

I've finished my second year of BSc Actuarial Science at LSE and will start a placement year straight after this internship at another company. I spent the first year of university simply getting used to the transition from A-levels, and found myself quite lost and overwhelmed when trying to navigate career-related activities on top of everything else. In second year, I felt much more confident in terms of knowing what I wanted to do and how to get there, and I was able to really immerse myself in my academic and career-related interests by going to as many events and conferences as possible and learning from industry professionals. I credit this to becoming comfortable with asking for help and taking the time to explore my interests, strengths, and weaknesses.

Could you speak about how you obtained the internship?

I went to a Bright Network event where I spoke to an Allianz representative and found out about the Undergraduate of the Year Awards by targetjobs. I applied for the Future Insurance Professional of the Year Award specifically, which was sponsored by Allianz that year, and got the internship by being one of the finalists.

The application process for the award was quite simple compared to other applications: there were three questions about who I am and why insurance specifically, followed by some mandatory tests. I found out that I was a finalist shortly before the awards ceremony, and I was incredibly honoured and lucky to be chosen to attend!

Why insurance?

As an undergraduate actuarial science student, I joined the research subcommittee of my university's Actuarial Society, and I was really eager to speak to as many industry professionals as possible. Both as part of my research for new article topics and for my own personal and career-related interest, I attended plenty of actuarial conferences and events, and listened to many insurance-related podcasts, such as the Insurance Post Podcast, the Insurance Day Podcast, and Tomorrow by Allianz Research.

Through this, insurance's importance in the modern-day world became clear to me, and I was fascinated to learn more about how I could utilise and develop my skills to contribute to it. The protection that it gives people and businesses from such a wide range of risks, effectively enabling everything to run as it does, makes insurance a people business at heart.

I particularly care a lot about that in general, especially when I think about how the world is currently changing with climate change, AI, conflicts, political instability, and more, all of which the insurance industry is adapting to. For example, climate change would not only affect the frequency and severity of natcat events, but also lead to asset damage, supply chain disruption, and business interruption, which would then end up affecting us as individuals, on top of all the other knock-on effects we experience every day.

This poses an interesting challenge for insurance, and I've enjoyed learning about the solutions proposed, such as new products being offered and the use of more sophisticated models. As a result, pursuing a career in insurance is one way for me to use what I've learnt at university about statistics and quantifying reality to, hopefully, contribute positively to the causes that matter to me, even if it may seem small.

How are you finding the internship so far? (What department are you in, what kind of projects have you been working on?

It's been really lovely so far since everyone is so patient and willing to help whenever I get stuck, and they've made a real effort to make sure that I'm included and have as many opportunities to learn as possible! I'm in the Actuarial team, more specifically the AZP Motor team, and I've been helping with setting up summary files in preparation for the next reserving quarter and automating workflows such as graph creation for slides used in monthly meetings with other departments.

At first, it was quite overwhelming as I felt very out of place and clueless, but I'm getting used to it now, especially Excel! I've also been able to sit in on quite a few meetings between Reserving and other teams, such as Pricing and the wider actuarial department, and they're a really good opportunity to get exposed not only to what people talk about, but how they talk about it as well.

Have you got involved in anything outside your day-to-day work (volunteering, networking, or social events?)

I was really keen to learn as much as possible during my short time here, so I reached out to as many people as I could from a wide range of different functions and teams within the business. I've had the opportunity to speak to people from Information Security, Claims, HR, Pricing, Sales, and more, and it's been wonderful being able to see how every part of the business comes together by fulfilling a specific purpose.

Other than that, I was invited to social events held within my team, such as poker night and a team dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant, which has been extremely lovely. There was an ice cream social for the whole London office too!

What skills or knowledge have you gained during your internship that you didn’t expect?

I didn't expect that there would be so much that falls under claims and how specialised some roles can be but flexible for others. I had some high level ideas about what claims would involve, but the structure of claims goes into so much detail, meaning there really is a whole team of people for every single stage of the claims lifecycle. There's a claims strategy and customer experience department which then is split into teams such as digital and automation, central operations & people development, and so forth. In general, there are just so many layers to insurance and the running of an insurance firm that I didn't necessarily knew existed, which was really interesting and cool to me.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone applying for a summer internship at Allianz?

Immersing yourself in the world of insurance and staying curious about everything is so important. While hard skills shouldn't be ignored, they can always be developed later, and everyone at Allianz knows this. In fact, many current employees may be in the process of upskilling themselves. That's why soft skills such as taking initiative, problem-solving, and creativity become essential as a summer intern, especially if you can ground your thinking in the context of insurance.

I found that staying informed and going above and beyond in my university work has personally helped me a lot when navigating internship applications, networking, and other career-related activities that were completely new to me as someone without a background in the industry and from a lower-income background. For example, it's made me more confident when networking because I can at least understand the basics of the specialist language being used, meaning I can better focus on asking more nuanced and thoughtful questions. This would also mean taking tried to take every opportunity, or even create new ones, to learn from different experiences and then reflect on them afterwards, which is something I always try to do.