Assistant Accountant

Beazley is a specialist insurance company with over 30 years’ experience helping people, communities and businesses to manage risk all around the world. Our mission is to provide beautifully designed insurance, innovating to give our clients the maximum benefit with minimum hassle.

Our products are wide ranging, from cyber & tech insurance to marine, healthcare, financial institutions and contingency; covering risks such as the weather, film production or protection from deadly weapons.

Our Culture

We employ over 1,500 people globally, hosting a wonderful diversity of cultures, experiences and backgrounds. We are proud of our family-feel culture at Beazley that empowers our staff to work from when and where they want, in an adult environment that’s big on collaboration, diversity of thought & personal accountability.

Our three core values inspire the way we work and how we treat our people & customers – 1) Be bold 2) Strive for better 3) Do the right thing. Upholding these values every day has enabled us to become an innovative and responsive organisation in touch with the changing world around us – our ambitious I&D & Sustainability targets are testament to this.

We encourage internal career progression at Beazley, giving you all the tools you need to drive your own career here, such as iLearn (our own learning & development platform), LinkedIn Learning, our mentorship program and external qualification sponsorship. As a Beazley employee, you also get access to our fantastic array of benefits which include commuting reimbursement, free in-office lunch, six months parental leave and a lifestyle allowance, amongst many others.

Job Summary:

Specialist insurance company Beazley is seeking an IFRS 17 Assistant Accountant within its Finance function to work closely with a wide range of stakeholders across the business. Reporting to the Senior IFRS 17 Accountant, this role will be primarily responsible for all aspects of embedding the IFRS 17 Statutory Reporting requirements into Beazley’s overall finance processes. 

Initially this role will be as part of the project before transitioning into BAU and therefore there is scope to be part of and influence reporting metrics. The role encompasses implementation of end to end processes, being part of the parallel run testing team and engaging with stakeholders in review and sign off of outputs. Key responsibilities include processing of inputs received from across the business, analytical review, documentation of outputs and developing strong working relationships across the organisation both inside and outside of Finance.

Key Responsibilities: 

• Reporting into the IFRS 17 Senior Accountant as the IFRS17 Assistant Accountant.

On the project

• Initially to work within the programme team delivering IFRS17 into Beazley. 
• Supporting Operational Readiness activities such as carrying out data reconciliations and carrying out opening balance sheet activities.
• Supporting Reporting activities such as drafting proformas for IFRS 17 compliant financial statements and disclosures.
• Assisting in developing the chart of accounts, mappings, ledger postings and drafting report proformas.
• Assist in the build and development of IFRS 17 to GAAP reconciliation processes and templates.
• Assist in developing KPI’s and any other financial performance measures including reconciliation to IFRS 17 reporting numbers.
• Becoming a key stakeholder in the Dry Run testing delivering comparative runs to our external auditors .

BAU work

• From 2022 work as part of the IFRS 17 team that owns the IFRS17 process, accounting and reporting within Finance’s Reporting team structure. 
• Running of reconciliations of landed data to GAAP and ensuring compliant with IFRS 17.
• Preparation of reporting output from the IFRS 17 calculation engine ensuring it is IFRS 17 compliant and running reconciliations as defined for operational processes.
• Assist with development of Expense tool and relevant reconciliations. 
• Assist with preparation of quarterly reporting documentation and draft half year and year end disclosure proformas.
• Key person in understanding and running the expense tool during 2022 onwards providing key analysis for the IFRS17 BAU team for actual results. 
• Other adhoc tasks as required by the project or within the reporting team.

Core competencies

Core competencies in addition to those noted as specific requirements for the role and which are considered to be pertinent to the Expense team are as follows:

• Analytical Thinking:  Logical analytical approach to rapidly changing data and situations. Considers wider implications across functions and varying scenarios to Beazley.  
• Professionalism: Consistently demonstrates integrity, is highly credible, respectful and trustworthy and represents the expense team in a professional manner.  Builds and maintains successful working relationships and is seen to go the extra mile
• Learning and development:  Identifies strengths and weaknesses and seeks to improve performance.  Recognises and takes responsibility for mistakes and learns from them.  Continually seeks self-development opportunities.  Regularly engages in self-assessment and gives/receives feedback to enhance personal awareness
• Adaptability:  Effectively manages changing priorities in a dynamic environment.  Seeks training opportunities to understand new working methods.  Proves resilient in uncertain and difficult situations and adapts approach/plans/style as required.  
• Responsibility and Accountability:  Assumes full responsibility for the consequences of own behaviour and decisions.  Delivers on commitments to clients demonstrating reliability and dependability.  Admits mistakes and takes responsibility for correcting them.  
• Communicating Effectively:  Timely communication of new information to relevant parties.  Adapts communication style / form as appropriate to the audience and illustrates an understanding of their experience and needs.  Conveys complex information clearly and concisely.  Persuades through uncovering shared benefits and outcomes, looking for mutually satisfactory solutions. 
• Demonstrating Teamwork:  Seeks collaboration as appropriate and shares knowledge/best practise and helps others when asked.  Acknowledges when other members of the team are under comparatively increased pressure and volunteers to support them while maintaining responsibility for own tasks. Teaches new team members & coaches others; identifies opportunities for collaboration (NB: definition of team is extended beyond the expense team as appropriate).  
• Innovative approach: Independently finds solutions to advanced problems and identifies potential barriers to solutions and provides alternatives.  Challenges assumptions and “the way we have always done it”.  Embraces change & communicates the benefits of change to others. 

Integrity and Control

• Use business knowledge to identify potential errors with financial impact and take steps to prevent and/or correct such errors, highlighting where necessary to management.
• Act as a conduit between the Finance department and other departments in order to maintain financial data integrity.
• Produce and maintain procedures documentation for own tasks.

General

It is important that within all your interactions both internally and externally you adhere Beazley’s core values - Being Bold, Striving for Better & Doing the Right Thing. We expect Beazley employees to:  

• Comply with Beazley procedures, policies and regulations including the code of conduct 
• Undertake training on Beazley policies and procedures as delivered by your line manager, the Culture & People or assurance teams (compliance, risk, internal audit) either directly, via e-learning or the learning management system
• Display business ethics that uphold the interests of all our customers
• Ensure all interactions with customers are focused on delivering a fair outcome, including having the right products for their needs
• Comply with any specific responsibilities necessary for your role as outlined by your line manager, the Culture & People or assurance teams (compliance, risk, internal audit) and ensure you keep up to date with developments in these areas.  This may include, amongst others, Beazley’s underwriting control standards, Beazley’s claims control standards, other Beazley standards and customer relationship management
• Carry out additional responsibilities as individually notified, either through your objectives or through the learning management system.  These may include membership of any Beazley committees or working groups

Personal Specification

We are a flexible and innovative employer offering a friendly, collaborative,  diverse and inclusive working environment. We actively encourage and expect applications from all backgrounds. We empower people to choose where to work given the work they need to do. Collaboration in office spaces is important but we do not mandate a set number of days in the office or from home – you decide what works best for you and the role you are in.  Beazley will offer the person a competitive salary and discretionary bonus with a strong benefits package including commuting reimbursement, free in-office lunch, excellent parental leave and financial physical and mental wellbeing contributions among others. 

Relevant qualifications and capabilities are listed as follows:

Education and Qualifications

• Experienced part qualified (ACA/ACCA/CIMA) 
• Experience of the insurance market, preferably Lloyd’s 
• Experience of accounting and understanding of IFRS reporting

Capabilities 

• Stakeholder management and relationship building
• Customer focus
• Understanding of controls frameworks including documentation
• Experience of a deadline driven environment
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Strong attention to detail
• Analytical and conceptual thinking
• Problem solving / Decision making
• Creativity / Innovation
• Adaptability