Andy Parsons

As a HX & Python developer for the Actuarial Pricing & Analytics team at Liberty, I have spent the last 12+ months driving innovation and efficiency in various pricing raters. My role has included the end-to-end development, maintenance and testing of the sophisticated the pricing models. A key part of the role involves clear and effective communication with various stakeholders, including underwriters, actuaries, product managers and senior leadership, to ensure alignment and transparency across the process.

The module that I will be teaching is ST116 - "Mathematical Techniques". As a seminar tutor, I organise weekly seminars for eighteen first year students. Having marked the student’s weekly assignments, I provide them with detailed feedback. This has taught me how to break down complex concepts and how to explain them in a simple and concise manner.

During my two-week stay I undertook various tasks, which started with data extraction from large data sets but progressed to calculating formulas such as Large Loss Ratios. Having done this for every service line the motor insurer offered, I then drew conclusions on my findings and presented them to my manager at the end of my stay. This gave me an understanding of the complex issues faced by insurers and how programs such as Excel and SAS can be used to solve them.

Initially I was employed as an Administration Clerk. I was given daily tasks, which had to be completed before the end of the day. This ranged from summarising notes, scanning important documents and dealing with prescriptions. After three months I was given an additional role of a Receptionist. This involved being a point of contact for patients and acting as a focal point of communication between patients, doctors and other medical staff. I also provided general assistance to the practice team and projected a positive and friendly image to patients and other visitors, either in person or by the telephone.

Since starting my job here, my role changed from Sales Assistant to working with the owner to assist him in various projects. As a Sales Assistant my role required me to be attentive to customers’ needs, giving them information about the features, quality and availability of different products when necessary. My job then changed to assisting with internet sales. This involved dealing with external sales including Amazon orders, dealing with customer enquiries and complaints, determining and setting the prices of products and translating products from the UK marketplace to other European marketplaces such as Germany, France and Spain. My greatest contribution to the company involved developing an Excel based computer tool to calculate international price setting for products. It included all variables, such as shipping costs, product net cost, profit margin, VAT, weight and size which allowed the team to calculate the exact selling price in each country. This enabled the company to update all their prices in batches rather than calculating the products individually.