Pros
Pay can be good but very much depends on department and time at which you joined. Benefits are good.
Cons
Highly inefficient and manual processes. Support processes do not work properly. Lots of outsourcing, offshoring and near-shoring over the last decade has contributed to inflexible processes with inadequate staff and a diffuse cost base that hits back home like a boomerang as expensive central functions are preoccupied with all the inefficiency that ensues. There is a general absence of best practice in how the Group is structured and managed. Innovation is there but rare and focused on retouching the shop window. Strategy focuses on dividend increase, yet only insufficiently on renewal of processes, systems and people. While top management has the right strategists, there is a tremendous amount of group think on lower levels, where management believes that an insurance company should be run the way it used to be 30 years ago. Salary policy is very inconsistent between comparable functions and not based on merit or value added. No perspective for ambitious junior staff, neither for career nor pay development - most key executive positions are held by very good staff but none of them built their career from within the company. Junior and senior staff performs a heavy load of administrative work with insufficient skill development vs. the job market and insufficient to progress into one of those key executive positions that you can expect to most likely be re-filled with external candidates when opportunities arise.
