The plentiful (and lucrative) roles around Solvency II

Knowledge of Solvency II is a very good thing to have. Pay for risk professionals and actuaries with expertise in this area is spiralling as insurance firms scramble to get their houses in order for the impending regulation.

Solvency II - the regulation which aims to strengthen the capital requirements and risk management practices of all insurance and reinsurance firms with an annual premium income exceeding €5m - no longer seems so far away on the horizon.

The regulation needs to be implemented by November 2012, and many firms have been slow in recruiting the right people to allow them to do so, suggests Paul Clarke, global Solvency II leader at PwC.

"Many could find themselves paying over the odds for people with the right skills if they don't clarify their resource needs sooner rather than later," he says.

In fact, late comers may already be regretting being a little tardy - pay has been escalating rapidly over the last six months. Much of the work is being offered on a contract basis, because of the finite nature of the projects, and risk professionals can now expect 700-800 day.

"Last year we saw an increase of 30% on day rates for interim risk professionals with Solvency II knowledge and are expecting rises to continue into 2011, albeit at a slower rate," says Loraine Silvester, senior consultant focusing on risk recruitment into insurance. "Increasingly, Solvency II interims are being attracted out of contracts by higher day rates by their competitors."

To prevent this sort of poaching, insurance firms are offering a retention bonus of up to 100 a day as their contracts approach renewal, she suggests.

But the big money is being offered to actuaries. Paul Walsh, CEO of specialist actuarial recruiters Acumen Resources, says that permanent positions offer an across-the-board 15-20% increase when Solvency II is brought into the fray and that senior contract positions pay a minimum of 600 a day and up to 1500-2000 a day at the senior end.

"Around 80% of over business over the last six months has been driven by Solvency II - either direct hires related to the regulation, or firms replacing people who have switched across," he says. "The roles are very much around the technical side of actuarial work - statistical modelling and identifying and quantifying risk. Firms also demand knowledge of the regulation, coupled with a product background."

Starting salaries for a qualified actuary come in at 43.9k, according to The Actuarial Profession, rising to 184k for a chief actuary, senior partner. Not surprisingly, therefore, increasing numbers of actuaries are being lured across to the contract route, and the same is true for risk managers.

"Permanent salaries have yet to rise in line with interim rates," adds Silvester. "Risk professionals from the banking sector are typically attracted to work on Solvency II to benefit from the boost in profile and level of board level exposure on offer from such a key project."

Risk professionals in banking may be put off by the salary differential, however. Insurance risk roles typically pay around 60-75k at the mid-level, with little bonus potential, suggest recruiters.