Certainly at the moment there's a shortage of part-qualified students, so it's quite easy for them to find jobs. During the last recession people recruited fewer actuarial students and therefore there's more demand now. There are also some special circumstances, such as the work actuaries are doing in sorting out the pensions mis-selling scandal. This involves a lot of calculations which are ideally suited to actuarial students. Any business that we do, we have to make sure that the rates we set on the right basis.
Pinnacle is a specialist in the creditor market.
The biggest part of our work is setting scheme rates for creditor schemes. We write life cover, accident, sickness and disability cover and unemployment cover for lenders' mortgage and loan schemes. But you won't generally see our name on the application forms. As well as pricing, we have valuation work, which is basically making sure that the company is holding the right assets and knowing what its liabilities are. We have to submit returns each year to the Financial Services Authority.