Actuary at Discovery Limited

Job description

About Discovery Life

Discovery offers the ideal platform for the best Actuaries to learn, grow and challenge their abilities and currently has a role available for a top Actuary. The successful candidate will form part of the actuarial team responsible for the maintenance of the existing policies and benefits.

The incumbent will fulfil a key role in developing new products, benefits and enhancements for product launches from the initial brainstorming to the implementation stage, considering all stakeholders and aspects involved, but with a strong focus on ensuring the actuarial soundness of what is launched.

In addition to developing pricing models and quantifying the business and financial impact of any proposal, as well as clearly and comprehensively documenting and specifying the ultimate design, the role will integrate several areas’ interests and inputs, including those of Systems, Technical Marketing, Valuations, Legal, Compliance, Reinsurance, Underwriting, Medical, Quotations, Servicing, Client Communications and the other Discovery Businesses.

Teamwork within the actuarial area is also crucial and includes checking, testing and peer review of the other Actuarial Staff’s work as well as managing, developing and guiding junior staff.

Key Purpose of the role

• Develop sound models to quantify the financial impact of new products/benefits/features with which to produce accurate and on-time results throughout the product development cycle to drive informed management decisions and ensure the actuarial soundness of product launches
• Integrate the interests of all key stakeholders in product decisions to ensure that launched items meet customers’ needs and treat them fairly and that the launch aspects are appropriately optimised and clearly and comprehensively specified to ensure the smooth and desired implementation across all affected areas.
• Contribute creatively, critically and sensibly to the decision-making process throughout the product cycle to ensure innovative products that are the best solution and which demonstrate robustness to all angles of critique.
• Appropriately assist team members and junior actuarial staff to ensure that their work is checked and that they receive guidance and support as needed to assist them in producing the best output they can.
• Complete sundry ad-hoc requests accurately and on-time to ensure the smooth and desired ongoing day-to-day flow and operation of the business as far as their contribution is required.
• Liaising with key stake holders such as the Technical Marketing team, Legal Team, Claims and Underwriting Team the Valuations team, Business Analysts, Systems teams as well as the Quotes team, MIS team and other Discovery businesses.

Areas of responsibility may include but not limited to

• Leading and Supervising
• Working with People
• Presenting and Communicating Information
• Applying Expertise and Technology
• Analysing
• Creating and Innovating
• Formulating Strategies and Concepts
• Delivering Results and Meeting Customer Expectations

Education and Experience

• Matric with Mathematics
• Bachelor of Science degree in Actuarial Science (Honours Degree would be advantageous)
• Completed all actuarial exams (with the exception of at most two).
• A minimum of 2 years working experience as an Actuarial Analyst within the Life Insurance industry
• A minimum of 3 years working experience as an Actuary in a product development role within the Life Insurance industry (Advantageous).
• Strong analytical capabilities
• Advanced proficiency in MS Word, MS Excel, MS Outlook and MS Access
• Advanced knowledge in a programming language i.e. Prophet and SQL
• Advanced experience in Actuarial Modelling, Profit Testing, Problem Solving, Data Analysis, Mathematical and Statistical reasoning
• Strong communication skills

EMPLOYMENT EQUITY

The Company’s approved Employment Equity Plan and Targets will be considered as part of the recruitment process. As an Equal Opportunities employer, we actively encourage and welcome people with various disabilities to apply