Co-Op Experience

 

Hi again everyone,

After taking a few MIS classes as part of my minor and learning the general idea of information systems, I decided to practice my skills at the job market, taking a Co-Op position at Guy Carpenter (GC) as a Catastrophe Risk Modeler. Guy Carpenter is a reinsurance arm leader and has three main lines of business. One is brokerage, which focuses on obtaining clients, insurance companies who are looking for reinsurance. Second is advisory, which advises insurance companies on reinsurance strategies and options. Third is analytics, and that is the division I am in. My role primarily focuses on analyzing catastrophic events and applying the results to underwriting risk, reinsurance purchasing, portfolio management and other policy pricing. The clients are insurance companies who are seeking reinsurance for their risks. GC’s role is to find the best quote and contract conditions for the clients.

Throughout the co-op, along other tasks, I primarily worked on six projects. In each, I implemented the knowledge I learned in class using SQL, R Studio, Access and Excel. My main tasks involved pulling raw data that the insurance company provided, analyzed it, model it though a software that predicts peril’s severity and finally, come up with necessary conclusions. In the modeling part, the software was using data provided by meteorologists to predict a peril in a specific area. After the predictions were included in the model, the analytics team could have come up with a probability distribution of a loss and its impact on the financial stability of the insurance company.

Along critical thinking and analytical skills that I developed as a modeler, I believe that this experience helped me to enhance my SQL and Access understanding. Furthermore, I completed a VBA training, which I believe is an essential part of my role as a Catastrophe Modeler and very useful in other areas of business analysis.

At Temple, I often worked in groups on various projects, which helped to improve my team building and group critical thinking skills. At GC, I practiced what I’ve learned in class and had an opportunity to work with brokers, clients, and actuarial analysts. It was an incredible learning experience on how to serve client goal and objectives successfully, as a team. At the beginning of my co-op, I had individual trainings with analysts which I believe been vital to my success in the role. Having little prior knowledge about the insurance and reinsurance industries, it wasn’t easy to learn the terms, abbreviations and processes all at once. However, the analytics team helped me transition into the role and learn all the necessary terms and techniques. After having four months of job experience, I can confidently say that I have learned a great deal about the aforementioned sectors and the ins and outs of the catastrophe risk modeler role.

Overall, I think it is essential to implement the skills you have learned in class, at the job market. As a graduating senior, it certainly prepared me to confidently step into the work force. In class, we usually have all of the necessary information to come up with a solution. That is not always the case in real life, however. To all the students at Temple, I highly recommend getting out there and finding an internship while you are at school. Even though it is hard to balance everything together, it is extremely rewarding at the end.