If you're a graduate looking to get into insurance and actuarial and need to get a feel for the kind of questions employers might ask at interview, then make sure you research these graduate insurance interview questions below. These questions and answers are taken from real graduate interviews, and compiled to give you an idea of what to expect and how to prepare your answers.

Example Insurance and Actuarial Interview Questions:

How do you feel that your personal or academic background fits with the position that you are seeking?

This will be a common question as most candidates will have graduated from a course that is not directly linked to insurance. You will have to draw out aspects of your degree that are transferable. Key aspects will be any numeracy skills, communication skills, analytical skills and IT skills. You may also wish to provide a justification for your choice of academic course, and prove that your academic successes can be replicated in the workplace.

Describe a situation in the past where you have taken and managed a risk?

Depending on which aspect of insurance you go into you may have to assess risk and quantify it. If you do not have much experience in the insurance industry then you will not be able to give a real example but a good academic or real world example should also be sufficient. This could be used as an opportunity to get your employer find out more about you, so you could include an example from a gap year trip, holiday, hobby, or from previous employment.

What makes a good salesman/women?

A large part of the insurance sector will be sales, even if you are not applying to a sales role you will still need to understand how insurance sales work and therefore you will need to explain this in an interview. The best aspects of a good salesman are typically a desire to truly help their customers, the habit of asking questions to gather information, the ability to quickly develop rapport with their prospective customers, and the ability to communicate articulately and politely.