Business support assistant, client facing Review

I am an apprentice insurance broker, my day to day involves talking to clients about their insurance requests and queries. Once a request has been made and the appropriate information has been provided I approach markets to obtain quotes, from this I create the relevant documentation and provide the quotes to the clients. After the client has approved the quote I create the insurance documents and give them to the clients.

I have learned many new skills. Initially there was a big learning curve as I had no prior experience in the industry. Since the first year this a plateaued and there has been less learning of new skills. I am very happy with what I have learned so far and look forward to working on new projects

I enjoy the programme. There are times where it gets quite full on with juggling both the work and the studying for the exams. I am looking to get my diploma and finish the apprenticeship after that as I don't think that I want to carry on with it. I am pleased with the progress I am making.

There is a degree of structure. The study sessions are very useful and the growth company rep is really supportive. The work side of things is a lot less structured. It would be nice to have more structure, for example more structured "lessons" in work time to have a better idea on more specific things that my role involves or would involve in the future would be useful.

There was a large amount of support initially however this has decreased. I would say there was a lot of support in the first 6-12 months however this is no longer the case. This may be because I don't go out of my way to find it or it may be because I have had the learning curve and am now set in my role a bit more.

The Growth Company provides a lot of great feedback on the work that I send over to him. Sometimes the work doesn't seem as straightforward as it may seem but Matt provides a lot of help and breaks down the tasks in a easy to understand and manageable way

The tasks set definitely make me more proactive in my role to ensure that I can complete my training requirements. This has made me look closer at what I do day to day to see where these tasks can be tagged into my assignments that need completing to get this ticked off.

There are very few social activities with other apprentices at work. I have not met a lot of the cohort that I'm in. I am not aware of any sports teams. There are social events with underwriters who we work with as a team but nothing with other apprentices

Yes

It was a good alternative to going to university and a great way to get my foot in the door of the industry. There are things that I would like to be different but overall I am very appreciative of the opportunity I have been given and would recommend it to others

I would say that they should prioritise their coursework over their work as that is the biggest thing to take away from the job. I would say try to socialise early on and set up a network to communicate and socialise. I joined late so did not have any onboarding sessions to meet the others. I would also say try and get a buddy to help you out early on and introduce you to others in your team and in other teams you work with.