Camden Woods was an Actuarial Intern with Sun Life Financial in Kansas City in the summer of 2018. She worked with the Stop Loss Pricing Team.
How did you get your internship?
I believe what helped me secure this internship was the networking I did last fall. I attended the Actuarial Science Career Fair at the University of Central Missouri where Sun Life attended. Sun Life also came and gave a presentation at Truman the very next day, which I attended as well. I spoke with three different actuaries from the company, handed out two resumes in person, and applied online.
What sorts of things did you do during your internship?
During my internship, I was responsible for updating sales files and policy renewal files. I worked on various projects throughout the summer as well. I did a lot of work in VBA, and one project I had was to redesign a tool used by the underwriting team that quantifies the monetary change per employee based on changing insurance plan features. I also did some coding in SAS and added a new loss ratio variable to a program that is used in the team’s rate study process. I attended weekly “lunch and learns” held for the interns where we learned about different branches of the company and actuarial roles on other teams.
How did you benefit from the internship?
This internship was an invaluable experience and it solidified my decision to continue to pursue actuarial science. My manager was an actuarial student based out of Wellesley, MA, but his manager was based out of the Kansas City office and became a kind of second manager to me. She is the Director of Stop Loss Pricing for Sun Life and was an amazing mentor. She walked through various Stop Loss concepts, processes, and renewal strategies with me and answered any big picture questions that I had. I feel that the work I did as an intern at Sun Life made an impact on the company and that I took away so much as well. This past summer I increased my insurance knowledge, technical knowledge, and improved other less quantifiable skills such as communication, teamwork, and my ability to problem solve.