There’s more to insurance than making sure you’re covered if your car gets stolen or your widescreen TV decides to blow up. Global insurance premiums totalled more than $ 4.3 trillion in 2010. In the US (the largest insurance centre, followed by Japan and the UK) the industry provides about 2.3m jobs. In the UK, this figure is more than 275,000, according to the Association of British Insurers.

The industry has four main areas:

Insurers

Assess risk and develop products for sale to individuals and corporations.

Re-insurers

Insure insurers against risk of significant losses.

Insurance brokers

Intermediaries who sell insurance products – particularly important in the corporate market.

Lloyds market

About 80 corporations, individuals, underwriters and financial backers, or syndicates, who come together to spread risk.

Roles and career paths

Underwriting

Involves extensive risk analysis, sifting stats on industries, demographics and clients to prepare a quote.

Actuarial

The domain of the maths whizz. Actuaries produce financial models based on the statistical analysis of risk, which are used by underwriters in their analysis.

Broking

The salespeople of insurance, who try to find the right product for a client. There are few places for graduates.

Claims

Where most insurance people work. Graduates are likely to land in fraud detection or claims investigation.

Pay and bonuses

Actuaries are among the highest paid professionals in the industry. In the US, the median annual wage of qualified actuaries is $87.6k, but the top 10% earn over $160k, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the UK, the starting salary forqualified actuaries is £43.9k ($71.7k), increasing to £184k ($300k) for a chief actuary, according to The Actuarial Profession.

A junior commercial underwriter in the UK starts on £23k-25k ($37.5k-40k), according to figures from recruiters Joslin Rowe, which rises to £35k-60k ($57k-98k) at the senior end. Sales and business development roles start at £25k-35k ($40k-57k), but increase to £55k-100k ($90k-163k) at the top level.

Skills sought

It takes five to seven years just to qualify as an associate actuary, but training is usually provided by the employer. You will need a maths-based degree to get your foot in the door, but this is the case for most graduate roles in insurance.

“Most of our graduate recruits tend to have a business, law, mathematics or engineering background,” says Yvonne Herbst, talent management consultant at Munich Re. “If they’ve completed an internship, this shows evidence of analytical
and social skills, which are important for the full-time roles.”

For underwriting roles, a good level of numeracy is required, plus communication skills, as you will have to liaise with other business areas and clients.

“We’re looking for people who can build long-term relationships. Many of our clients work with the same financial professional over the course of 30 or 40 years,” says Stephen Mannebach, vice president of agency development at Northwestern Mutual.