From Insurance graduate to Cyber Practice Leader

I was on the 2015-2017 graduate scheme, consisting of 4 six-month rotations around broking, underwriting, claims and the corporation itself.

I started with the corporation and joined the syndicate risk management team. I was part of interviewing prospective board-level hires at syndicates – something which gave unbelievable exposure to some highly important meetings with people discussing their syndicate plans, what the role of Lloyd’s is and/or could be for the market and their views on the future of insurance placements.

My next placement was with Lockton in Cyber underwriting, a really interesting class of business which matched my personality. This placement helped form my career so far.

I then moved to the Beazley cyber team, one of the leading cyber insurers in the market.

Finally, I returned to Lockton to do cyber claims from the broking side, which was a personal preference - I knew at this point I wanted to be a broker!

It’s an unbelievable opportunity to try completely different areas of insurance. The ability to try different classes of business, with different jobs (broking/underwriting etc.) is unparalleled. The reputation the scheme has is also fantastic! Every placement I was on people commented how great Lloyd’s grads are, how hard working and diligent. The reputation all the previous grads have helped to give the scheme helps open doors for people on it. Even in my post-scheme job, people comment so positively that I have been through the Lloyd’s graduate scheme, commenting that it is a very difficult scheme to get onto and an impressive feat.

Lloyd’s supported me through the process of finding placements and were always putting opportunities in front of me to consider. The focus and training to get my insurance exams done was also a huge help early on in my career as it is the perfect opportunity to get them completed in a structured way.

I chose Lloyd’s because of the flexibility of the scheme and the opportunity to move around and try new things. It was also the history of Lloyd’s and it’s international recognition as the centre of global insurance trading which meant that it is an unbiased, globally renowned organisation to be a part of.

The opportunity to grow into a career alongside a group of peers that were all starting out too. We were able to collaborate as a group on our studies, on our work placements and discuss and work through some of our first ever workplace problems together. We could share our expectations, ambitions, worries and concerns together and solve them with each other’s support. Being together as a group regularly was a great way to get to know other classes of business and jobs that we weren’t personally doing too; between us, we had a really wide-ranging view of the market and how it worked.