PT in one of the biggest Finnish insurance companies- LähiTapiola Keski-Suomi by Teemu Jaatinen
Hello! My name is Teemu Jaatinen, I am a 3rd year student who studies Finance and corporate governance in JAMK, and I have a high interest on the insurance and banking sectors. I completed my internship in LähiTapiola Keski-Suomi, one of the biggest insurance providers in Finland. LähiTapiola’s main areas of focus are within insurances, claims and wealth management. I was originally applying for a summer job within the company which I did not get, but their amazing job seekers reached out to me and offered an internship since they saw potential in me. I went to an interview talked with my supervisor, head of HR and ended up taking the offer. The internship was supposed to start in 2021 fall, but I ended up getting a phone call from my supervisor who said can you start already on June, so I did.
When I went in on my first day I got welcomed with warm hands and the newest technology equipment. I also got a lunch card to use for eating at nearly any restaurant in Jyväskylä, and other great benefits such as a fitness coach and free gym usage. After going through the one-month training program, I started working as a service advisor mainly through three different communication channels: the phone, e-mail and messages sent to LähiTapiola’s own website service. I believe LähiTapiola provided a very innovative job description where everyone had their own methods of doing it and improving in it.
Most important ability was to find information well and fast, since you have massive amounts of different insurances, compensations, and other services to help the customer with on the spot. The variety of different subjects to learn gave a good introduction towards the insurance business and narrowed down what exactly I want to specialize in the future. I also emphasize that the training program included a lot of knowledge on the finance sector, so it does give a good foundation for everyone even if you aren’t studying the field! For me knowing how to utilize different programs did come in handy and especially understanding figures and multitasking was very helpful.
LähiTapiola had many departments since it’s a big organization but the company culture was still very united and positive. We had multiple teams’ meetings per week to see how our team was doing and how the whole company itself was doing. I was very interested when I got to see the financial statements of our results on a team’s meeting, since that is something that I’m very interested in, therefore I felt like LähiTapiola connected my interest with finance on the daily work and in the bigger meetings.
The most important skills that I learned were how to work in a big corporation. I had no real experience of that before, now I saw behind the curtains on how every function operates and communicates to each other. This was the biggest thing for me personally and combining that with learning a huge number of different insurances, claims, and so forth. I did also improve on teamwork, individual initiative and pitching products. I would recommend LähiTapiola as an internship option for someone interested of the finance industry. In conclusion this internship helped me to see the corporate world, learn multiple things about the insurance business and gave me an idea that I might continue my career within the industry.
Author: Teemu Jaatinen