Graduate Natural Hazard Specialist

Location: Zurich, Zurich, CH

About Swiss Re

Swiss Re is one of the world’s leading providers of reinsurance, insurance and other forms of insurance-based risk transfer, working to make the world more resilient. We anticipate and manage a wide variety of risks, from natural catastrophes and climate change to cybercrime.

At Swiss Re we combine experience with creative thinking and cutting-edge expertise to create new opportunities and solutions for our clients. This is possible thanks to the collaboration of our 15,000 employees across the world.

We offer a flexible working environment where curious and adaptable people thrive. Are you interested in joining us?

About the Programme

We are looking for graduates with strong interpersonal skills, who are eager to learn and broaden their knowledge and expertise. You have a Bachelor, Master or PhD degree with up to 3 years professional experience - we invite you to apply to our graduates@swissre programme 2021.
The programme offers you the chance to join the dynamic, fast-moving world of a leading risk knowledge organisation. Over an 18-month period, you’ll receive on- and off-the-job training, including a job rotation that gives you the opportunity to work across different business units.

About the role

Do you aspire to apply your scientific background to advance society’s resilience to natural hazards with the help of re/insurance? Do you thrive on collaboration with colleagues from different units, subject areas, geographies, cultural backgrounds, seniority levels? Are you hardworking and have the courage to challenge the current modelling practices, think out-of-the box, ultimately making an impact on the underwriting decisions of a global reinsurer? We offer a position focusing on the junction point of science and its application in re/insurance.

Your main responsibilities will include:

• Contributing to the Portfolio team’s project agenda with abusiness impact attitude and delivering tangible outcomes with a sense of urgency
• Developing insights on macro trends such as urbanisation, regulations, GDP growth, adaptation and mitigation measures, to better understand how these influence the insured losses of past natural catastrophe events and forward-looking modelling
• Being on top of the latest scientific developments regarding climate change impact on climate risk in order to translate these into actual risk modelling and assessment
• Supporting the execution of our R&D agenda in the ever more important high frequency/secondary peril space
• Preparing material for regulators, rating agencies and investors
• Being part of an SRI cross-functional team on Property & Specialty topics, supporting the portfolio champions’ work

About the team

The Cat Perils & Cyber team is responsible for Swiss Re’s global natural catastrophe risk assessment. It is mandated to advance the state-of-the art probabilistic and proprietary modelling technology for earthquakes, tropical and extratropical cyclones, flood hazards. The team comprises of more than 40 hard-working engineers and scientists in wide-ranging subject areas. We pride ourselves on owning one of the largest and most refined in-house model frameworks in the industry.

We are organised in three regional teams, North America, EMEA and Asia, and two cross-regional teams: R&D, and the Portfolio team, which you will be part of. Our team’s mandate is shaped around embedding macro risk trends such as climate change and urbanisation in the Nat Cat underwriting processes of Swiss Re. We are the interface to internal functions such as underwriting and risk management, and external counterparties such as regulators and investors on the topics of Nat Cat underwriting, Nat Cat portfolio performance and state-of-the-art governance.

About You

• Successfully completed university degree (M.Sc. or Ph.D.), preferably in natural sciences, data science, engineering, actuarial sciences or equivalent
• Strong interest in/motivation to learn about insurance/reinsurance
• Excellent computer programming skills (e.g. Python, Matlab, R) and track record in developing numerical and/or data analysis applications
• Strong mathematical, statistical, analytical and conceptual skills; focus on details without losing track of the bigger picture
• Approaches problems with curiosity and flexibility, a fast learner and is comfortable taking ownership to push a topic further
• Team-player, willingness to contribute actively to the overall team spirit
• Ability and passion to work in a global and multicultural environment
• Capacity to readily adapt to a changing and dynamic environment
• Expertise to work independently
• Excellent oral and written English skills
• Proficiency in MS Office applications (Excel, PowerPoint, Word)
• Very good communication and interpersonal skills

We are looking forward to your application!

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.