Summer Student Review

Working with other members of the pensions actuarial department (of varying seniority: from first year analysts to senior partners) to complete actuarial work (both client and in-house work). This included a lot of work in Excel. Examples of things I did were: calculate CETVs, data work (formatting data to be used in LCP's proprietary software), filling in ITQ templates for insurers, draft documents/powerpoints to be shown to clients, client teams calls.

My knowledge of the business world has increased drastically, including my knowledge of corporate vs trustee issues within pensions (I was fortunate to work on both sides of this precarious see-saw). My Excel skills have also increased tenfold, as well as my ability to network/liase/interact with people in a corporate setting.

Yes. There were only 2 "fake/mock work" projects throughout the internship (which were helpful in their own way). The majority of the work I did was real client work, which began as early as the third day of my internship. In this sense you are thrown in at the deep end, but this makes swimming much more rewarding.

There was 2 weeks of training which is helpful, and then you are assigned a buddy for the rest of your internship. Asides from this, everyone else at the company is very approachable provided you are sensible with to whom you direct your queries. I had weekly check-ins with my deputy team leader which were helpful.

Everyone at the company is very friendly and approachable and everyone seems to get on well. It is the kind of place where everyone knows everyone and you feel like you can stop and chat with everyone. There were a lot of social events (rounders, football, bar crawls) which were appreciated and helped us gel with the teams.

I really enjoyed my placement and found that I learned a lot, perhaps even more than I was expecting. I have also made some hopefully lifelong contacts. I would especially recommend this opportunity to anyone that can't necessarily afford to commute to or stay in London for the summer (albeit Winchester is expensive in its own right).

Yes

Have a good knowledge of what sets LCP apart from its competitors. Namely: a.) Their proprietary software (Calm and Visualise) b.) Their diverse and various areas of work that they are/are seeking to branch into as DB pensions are phased out in the middle-to-long term.