Senior Actuary

Location: Can be located within our London, Potters Bar or Bristol office (there is an expectation of minimum 2 days per week to be in an office)

Canada Life UK looks after the retirement, investment and protection needs of individuals, families and companies. We help to build better futures for our customers, our intermediaries and our employees by operating as a modern, agile and welcoming organisation.

Part of our parent company Great-West Lifeco, Canada Life UK has operated in the United Kingdom since 1903. We have hundreds of respected and supported employees committed to doing the right thing for our customers and colleagues.

Canada Life UK is transforming to create a more customer-focused business by providing our customers with expertise on financial and tax planning, offering home finance and annuities propositions, and providing collective fund solutions to third party customers.

Job Purpose

As an experienced qualified actuary at Canada Life you will be responsible for leading actuarial, statistical and financial insight and analysis to senior management, overseeing analysis and insight produced by other actuaries where appropriate and leading small to medium sized teams of qualified and part-qualified actuaries and analysts. Using your significant specialist technical expertise and solid commercial understanding you will take a lead within the team and function to advise the business and influence decisions, ensuring that we are managing risk to the business in line with Canada Life's risk appetite, complying with our statutory responsibilities and meeting the needs of our policyholders and regulators.

This role is focused on reinsurance valuation and reporting for the Canada Life business. This is a newly created role reflecting the increased focus on reinsurance for Canada Life. The role will focus on developing and maintaining reporting requirements to our reinsurers as well as providing input to Financial and Regulatory Reporting processes.

Key Accountabilities
1) Accountable for providing accurate modelling, financial analysis, advice and support to a range of areas of the business, taking ownership for making considered and commercially astute recommendations. Utilising your subject matter expertise in your actuarial discipline to analyse risk factors to demonstrate understanding and management of risk exposure to the organisation, taking accountability for appropriate action to manage and, where appropriate, mitigate risk exposure.

Leading risk analysis activity within your discipline, you will be responsible for effectively operating cross-functionally across the business on BAU and project activities, where the key to success will be demonstrating initiative combined with your ability to collaborate and influence senior stakeholders across different team and disciplines and other areas of the Canada Life group.

Communicate to senior executives (Executive Director Individual Business, CFO, Head of Actuarial Function and other Heads of function and Director level stakeholders), in an appropriate manner, the impact, financial and otherwise, of the various actuarial investigations, reports, recommendations and analyses and provide recommendations to senior executives to ensure successful business operation.

2) Additionally, using your experience and your deep knowledge of the business and the work done by your team, you will consider developmental opportunities, making recommendations to your line manager to improve operational efficiency and competitive advantage.

3) Initiating and overseeing the production of regular reports and annual/longer term plans undertaken by other actuaries, taking accountability for leading the continuous review and improvement of department processes and procedures. Your oversight will take into account up-to-date industry developments and issues to ensure to ensure the provision of a timely, accurate, commercial and efficient actuarial service to the business and key stakeholders across the business.

4) Oversee and implement actuarial control frameworks, initiating regular review of appropriate actuarial controls and analysis. Ensuring insight and commentary for senior managers and boards is written to a high standard and complies with legislation and our own internal control requirements.

5) Manage, coach, develop and motivate a team of qualified and part-qualified actuaries in order to optimise the performance of the team in line with the Divisions objectives. You will be responsible for reviewing the recommendations of qualified and part-qualified actuaries and providing feedback, coaching and mentoring to support their development.
Develop the skills and knowledge of team members so that they have the expertise to achieve the business requirements, as well as maximising individual development.

Desired Knowledge / Experience / Skills
Technical Expertise
• Strong commercial awareness and understanding of the needs of the business. Will be able to apply technical actuarial techniques and understand business/commercial implications
• Understand complex statistical and financial models across a range of actuarial disciplines, as well as the expertise to interpret and recommend commercially astute courses of action; constructively challenging and helping develop others' thinking and understanding.
• Significant experience in the life insurance industry and is a subject matter expert in a number of disciplines within the function
• Proven ability to lead on high-profile projects, utilising experience in project management techniques to deliver complex projects on-time, in-full.
• Willing and capable of taking difficult and complex decisions independently in order to progress issues, and able to exercise sound judgement and commercial sense to understand the importance of different issues and assess when matters need to be escalated.
• Experience in reinsurance reporting, both quota share and longevity swaps on annuity products.

Communication
• Strong communication skills, demonstrating a clear and articulate standard of written and verbal communication in a complex environment, tailored for all levels of management, including Board level.
• Strong ability to adapt messages to the audience, without prompting or significant coaching, in a format that is easily understood by non-technical colleagues
• Strong influencing skills, with experience of engaging with Boards and senior management in order to get desired outcome

Relationship Building
• The ability to develop and maintain strong relationships across the actuarial function and the wider business, acting with integrity and role modelling the company values at all times.
• Strong interpersonal/networking skills, with the ability to maintain a variety of relationships with multiple stakeholders,
• Ability to flex their style and delivery, in the moment, depending on the individual and/or audience.

Taking Initiative
• Exceptional problem solving skills and attention to detail with demonstrable ability in spotting issues, interdependencies and challenges to ensure work is produced to an accurate, commercial and informed standard.
• Self-motivated, well-organised, pragmatic and able to perform tasks independently.

Developing Self and Others
• Strong skills and experience in managing and motivating a team from a diverse range of professional backgrounds and with varying levels of experience
• Strong coaching ability in technical, and non-technical skills in order to support the development of others.
• An interested and inquisitive individual who is committed to their own ongoing professional and personal development

Qualifications:
• Fellow of Institute of Actuaries (or equivalent).

Benefits of working at Canada Life

We believe in recognising and rewarding our people, so we offer a competitive salary and benefits package that's regularly reviewed. As a Canada Life UK colleague, you'll receive a competitive salary and comprehensive reward package including a generous pension and bonus scheme, along with, income protection, private medical insurance and life assurance. We have a fantastic number of other benefits and support services as well as regular personal and professional development.

How we work at Canada Life

Our culture is unique and incredibly important to us. We care about doing the right thing for our people, customers and community and helping others to build better futures. Our blueprint behaviours shape and influence how we work, and are central to the relationships we have with others. Every day we are encouraged to be more curious, own the outcome, face into things together and find a way forward.

We want colleagues to have rewarding careers with us so we invest in the development of our people, technology and workplaces. That's why we offer a range of training, flexible working and opportunities to grow and develop.

Diversity and inclusion

Building an inclusive workplace with a diverse workforce where everyone can feel they belong and achieve their potential regardless of gender, ethnicity or any other characteristic is a key commitment for us. We are proud of the progress we're making in DEI, and we continue for it to be a significant focus.

"At Canada Life we believe in the power of great people from different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives coming together to build better futures. Emerging talent is crucial to our growth and creating an environment that continues to inspire us all." Nick Harding, Chief People Officer, Canada Life UK

We appreciate that everyone has different work and life responsibilities. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements, including part time, for any of our roles should this be a requirement for you.

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