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- You'll spend your time assessing the level of risk that insurance clients face and advising on how to reduce it
- You'll spend time travelling to visit clients and making assessments on their property
- With experience, you could progress to senior surveyor, or head of a risk management department
You may specialise in one of the following areas: fire and perils, accidents and liability, engineering insurance, or burglary and theft. You may have to make sure that companies have identified and put in place the correct risk management plans, and also make sure that they have introduced suitable health and safety procedures.
DAY-TO-DAY DUTIES
- Carrying out commercial and personal surveys
- Checking building plans, and construction and fire protection systems
- Preparing risk reports with recommendations for underwriters
- Advising clients on how to reduce the risk of future insurance claims
- Working closely with health and safety inspectors and fire officers
- Working with the risk control team to maintain technical knowledge and standards
- Keeping up to date with technical issues affecting risk, like hazardous materials
DAY-TO-DAY ENVIRONMENT
You could work in an office or visit sites, and your working environment might be outdoors, sometimes involving travel.
You'll need
For this role, you'll need maths, economics and accounting knowledge, legal knowledge including court procedure and government regulations, thoroughness and attention to detail, analytical thinking skills, the ability to work well with others, and excellent verbal and written communication skills.
You could get a degree before applying to join an organisation's management training scheme. Most subjects are accepted, but you might have an advantage if you study actuarial science, building surveying, business and management, economics, or engineering.
You could also complete a senior insurance professional degree apprenticeship.
You can start working as an administrator for a risk team to build up your skills and knowledge. Your employer might give you the chance to take industry qualifications so you can apply for promotion to risk surveyor.
Direct application to jobs is possible if you've got relevant qualifications and experience in a related profession like building surveying, health and safety, engineering, or fire safety.
Alternatively, some large insurance companies run graduate training schemes, but you'll usually need an upper second class degree to apply.
CAREER PROSPECTS
With experience, you could become a senior surveyor, head of a risk management department, or lead a compliance and government unit. You could also move into insurance loss adjusting or set up your own consultancy.