Discovery Life

Actuarial Analyst | Actuary

Research & Development

About Discovery

Discovery’s core purpose is to make people healthier and to enhance and protect their lives. We seek out and invest in exceptional individuals who understand and support our core purpose, and whose own values align with those of Discovery. Our fast-paced and dynamic environment enables smart, self-driven people to be their best. As global thought leaders, Discovery is passionate about innovating in order to not only achieve financial success, but to ignite positive and meaningful change within our society.

About Discovery Life

Discovery Life is an ever growing fast-paced and dynamic environment that provides innovative risk assurance to individual clients. This environment thrives on customer engagement and customer experience as well as mutually beneficial relationships with our brokers and other stakeholders.  It is important for our employees to provide a world class service to our internal and external clients, thereby ensuring long and sustainable relationships

Key Purpose

Responsible for:

• Ideation of and research into new innovations, and delivering the required technical actuarial and documentation work for new products and enhancements for product launches, from the initial brainstorming to the implementation stage, considering all stakeholders and aspects involved.

The role has emphasis on the:

• Sound actuarial modelling of all proposals, and delivery of the various required forms of written documentation (especially the product specifications)
• Acquiring and incorporating all inputs from key stakeholders during the product development cycle, and providing continual feedback into the direction of the launch proposal.

Areas of responsibility may include but not limited to

• Generating ideas for new innovations and researching new concepts to drive the strategic direction of the Discovery Life product suite. This will involve working closely with medical experts, analysis of the market environment (including distribution feedback, consumer needs testing and leveraging new technologies) to develop cutting edge product solutions that uniquely meet our clients’ needs.

• Developing sound actuarial models with well-considered methodologies and bases to quantify the financial impact of new products/benefits/features. These are used to produce accurate and on-time results throughout the product development cycle (informing management decisions continuously), concluding in successful statutory actuarial signoff of these items.

• Contributing to the various collective decision-making processes throughout the product development cycle of the business, with specialist insight particularly into the underlying actuarial modelling and dynamics.

• Working and collaborating with key stakeholders – including the reinsurers, Chief Medical Officer, Actuarial Risk Specialists, Business Analysts, the Valuations, Technical Marketing, Quoting, Systems, Testing, Underwriting, Claims, Legal and Compliance areas, Technology experts, as well as the other Discovery Businesses where Integration is necessary.

• Drafting and continually updating the relevant product specifications that reflect the product decisions, incorporating the relevant feedback from all key stakeholders mentioned above. These should be clearly and comprehensively written to ensure the smooth and desired implementation across all affected areas.

• Delivering the other forms of critical documentation involving product launches in the appropriate formats, which includes the relevant sections of the Actuarial Committee documents, TCF documents, final rates and values, test models and policy wording.

• Completing and addressing various ongoing requests and queries accurately, fully and timeously to ensure that the parties involved are optimally enabled with the necessary direction and assistance.

Education and Experience

Essential:

• Matric with Mathematics
• Relevant Bachelor’s/Honours degree in Actuarial Science or Mathematical Statistics from an accredited institution
• Exemption of at least all written CT's and CA1
• Working experience as an Actuarial Analyst

Advantageous:

• CA1 exam passed or exemption obtained.
• Academically qualified actuary; preferred is 80%+ for all university subjects given the complex technical work
• Working experience of at least 2 years as an Actuarial Analyst in the Life Insurance Product Development and Pricing environment

Technical Skills and Knowledge

Essential:

• Proficiency in MS Word, MS Excel and MS Outlook
• Effective communications skills
• Strong data analysis skills
• Problem Solving skills

Advantageous:

• Excel (including VBA), SQL, Statistical and stochastic modelling with software such as R/R Studio/Python

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.