The insurance industry has five main types of firm:

Insurers: Assess risk and develop products to be sold to individuals and corporations.

Re-insurers: Insure the insurers against the risk of significant losses.

Insurance brokers: Intermediaries selling insurance products - particularly important in the corporate market.

Lloyds market: Around 80 corporations, individuals, underwriters and financial backers - or syndicates - who come together to spread risk. It's also home to 176 broking firms.

Bancassurance: A partnership between an insurance firm and a bank whereby the insurer uses the bank as a sales channel for its products.

Financial jobs in insurance fall into several different categories. These include:

Underwriting: Underwriters assess people instead of products. An underwriting job involves extensive risk analysis, and sifting through statistics on industries, demographics and individual clients to prepare quotes.

Actuarial: The domain of the maths whizz. Actuaries create financial models based on the statistical analysis of risk. For example, an actuary job in a life insurance firm would involve producing mortality projections. These models are then used by underwriters in their analysis. Actuaries need to possess specific tertiary and professional qualifications which take several years to complete. Senior actuaries might represent the company in dealing with the regulator on local statutory and solvency issues.

Product: Product roles involve improving the firm's existing insurance products and developing ideas for new ones, based on market trends, consumer needs and knowledge from the sales team. They sometimes come from an actuarial background.

Investment: Investment jobs involve investing the insurance firm's funds. While maximising returns in accordance with the regulations, investment employees will monitor and plan investment strategies to minimise the risks,.

Broking: Insurance brokers are salespeople who help to find the right insurance products for both individual and corporate customers. The insurance brokerages they work for vary in size from small local firms to huge global organisations.

Sales: Insurance companies may also have in-house direct sales teams. In bancassurance, consumers deal with salespeople based at the bank, such as tellers and financial consultants. Bank staff are aided by the insurance company through product information, marketing campaigns and sales training.

Claims: A large number of people working in insurance work within claims divisions, assessing insurance claims from customers. Roles involve fraud detection and claims investigation.