When I talk about working in insurance, I don’t even mention the word insurance. The first rule of insurance: don’t bore me with insurance. Even with ‘banking’ and ‘accounting’, I’m already thinking about what I’m going to have for lunch. Instead, I tend to talk about what people enjoy or what they’d love to be good at. If someone likes gaming and messing about with computers, I ask them if they’d consider coding in our IT or Pricing team. A career is never about the industry or even the company. It is, first and foremost, about the individual, so why not start with that?
I knew studying Maths would be tough, but I also knew it wouldn’t be mediocre – I learnt about Pi and Pythagoras, which gave me the building blocks I needed, and then it was about realising my potential. I embraced my unconformity – I love numbers and I challenge the misconception that females can’t be successful in Maths-based careers.
At university, I did a lot of research into what careers involve maths. As it happens, I didn’t know a lot about Pricing, but I did know that insurance firms need actuaries, and when I joined Covéa, I was introduced to Pricing, which has given me such a fascinating career.
I thought I was going down a maths route so that I could add up for a living. Now I’m building artificial intelligence systems that can learn. I’m writing code and producing mathematical frameworks that are the closest thing to mimicking a human brain. I’m also gaining insight and knowledge all the time.
If you’ve got the slightest inclination to pursue a maths-based career, then go for it. There are a lot of people with a story like mine, but my advice is to be bold and write your own!
This article was written by Chelsea Tucker, Senior Delivery Pricing Analyst.
