Lead Biometric Data Scientist / Actuary

Reinsurance Group Of America, Incorporated; London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading reinsurance company is seeking a Data Scientist or Actuary for its Biometric R&D team in London. This role involves leading R&D initiatives, designing tools for mortality data analysis, and mentoring junior team members. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in statistical modeling within the insurance industry and a strong STEM background, contributing to impactful projects that drive business value.

Benefits

Valuable knowledge from diverse colleagues

Respectful and welcoming environment

Endless career potential

Qualifications

• 7+ years’ experience in statistical modeling for insurance or related applications.
• Experience in actuarial research/pricing teams in the insurance industry.
• Reinsurance industry experience preferred.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical work and maintenance of R&D projects and products.
• Design, develop, and maintain tools for analyzing mortality data.
• Mentor and develop junior team members.

Skills

Data manipulation

Statistical modeling

Data visualization

SQL

R

Python

Mortality modeling techniques

Project ownership

Education

Strong undergraduate degree in a STEM subject

Postgraduate degree or FIA, FSA accreditation

Tools

Pandas

Seaborn

Data tables

ggplot

Job description

You desire impactful work.

You’re RGA ready

RGA is a purpose-driven organization working to solve today’s challenges through innovation and collaboration. A Fortune 500 Company and listed among its World’s Most Admired Companies, we’re the only global reinsurance company to focus primarily on life- and health-related solutions. Join our multinational team of intelligent, motivated, and collaborative people, and help us make financial protection accessible to all.

A Brief Overview

The Biometric R&D team (part of Global R&D) is seeking a talented and accomplished Data Scientist, or Actuary, to join its team. The successful candidate will bring a combination of deep technical expertise and proven business acumen to lead key initiatives - from initial discovery and ideation through architecture design, development, deployment, and ongoing optimization.

The Biometric R&D team play a key role in RGA, supporting both actuarial and underwriting business teams – across the Enterprise – with data-driven research, models, and insights related to biometric risk research. The role would suit somebody with prior experience of performing R&D or providing advanced analytical support in an insurance/reinsurance environment, particularly if they have previous experience of biometric trend assumption-setting.

Key responsibilities include designing, developing, and maintaining tools for loading, manipulating, analysing, and visualizing mortality/survival data, and a suite of models developed centrally and served to business units across the globe. One specific focus area is expanding RGA’s capabilities to monitor and model drivers of past, emerging and future mortality experience.

The global nature of the role means that the candidate will work closely with a broad range of teams on exciting projects from across the business and lead a diverse range of actuarial and underwriting analytics initiatives to bring tangible business value to RGA.

What you will do

• Lead the technical work and maintenance of research and development projects and products catering to a diverse range of stakeholders across the organization.
• Ensure stakeholder needs are understood, expectations are communicated and managed, and the ultimate solutions deliver value.
• Stay abreast of, and leverage, modern data science methods and statistical modelling techniques, implementing them as needed to create actionable insights.
• Work with potential stakeholders across the business to help them understand available tools, models, and data, leading discussions and troubleshooting any arising issues.
• Translate business needs into sustainable solutions. For example, design, build, and maintain software/tooling/datasets related to monitoring, modelling, and forecasting mortality across markets and geographies where RGA operates.
• Work with diverse datasets, finding, collating, cleaning, and standardizing datasets from multiple sources and geographies to understand mortality drivers and improvements (cause of death, socioeconomic data, etc.).
• Influence the direction of the Biometric R&D team by actively contributing to operational planning, strategic planning, and new initiatives.
• Stay informed of research surrounding major mortality and morbidity trends and drivers across RGA’s key geographies.
• Set realistic and achievable deadlines for projects. Ensure required tasks are completed accurately within those deadlines.
• Supervise, review, and provide feedback on, in a timely manner, the work – including data, assumptions, modelling, testing and documentation – of team members across Global R&D.
• Mentor, train, and develop junior Biometric Research team members. Actively seek opportunities to develop the wider Global R&D team.

Qualifications

• Strong undergraduate degree in a STEM subject
• 7+ years’ experience in statistical modelling for insurance or related applications
• Postgraduate degree and/or FIA, FSA or equivalent accreditation (Actuarial job title only)
• Exposure to working in and/or with Actuarial research/pricing teams in the insurance industry
• Reinsurance industry experience
• Experience of demographic or biometric assumption setting / experience analysis

Skills & Abilities

• Advanced ability to manipulate, visualize, and analyze large volumes of data using common data science packages (like pandas, seaborn, data tables, ggplot, etc.), tools, and platforms.
• Advanced ability to code in SQL, R and/or Python; advanced understanding of what makes “good” code, set coding standards for key pieces of work.
• Strong understanding of core (mortality) modelling techniques (GLMs, ARIMAs, smoothing methods).
• Some knowledge of the Life Insurance industry and key products (annuities and assurances)
• Ability to take ownership in projects and drive them to completion
• Ability to translate business needs and problems into viable/accepted solutions

• Advanced life insurance and/or reinsurance industry and product knowledge.
• Experience of serving dashboards and data models / insights to business teams
• Experience of building R packages
• Knowledge of real-world data, medical, and underwriting data
• Knowledge of actuarial processes and concepts, life insurance underwriting
• Experience of common mortality model structures like the Lee Carter and APC models

What you can expect from RGA:

• Gain valuable knowledge from and experience with diverse, caring colleagues around the world.

• Enjoy a respectful, welcoming environment that fosters individuality and encourages pioneering thought.

• Join the bright and creative minds of RGA, and experience vast, endless career potential.