So I'm sure everyone has seen the news by now and is aware of the current situation in London. At the moment we are lucky enough to have been unaffected in terms of the location of both our flat and workplace, so it's business as usual for us. My thoughts go out to all of those who have been affected and I hope no further damage is done.

At the end of my last blog the other two Saltire interns and I were preparing to present our current findings to Group MD, Sarah Lyons. This was an extremely inspirational meeting, with Sarah getting straight to the figures, providing insight and guidance as to our next steps. With Sarah being so senior within the organization we weren't sure how aware she would be of the details of our project; that said,she seemed to know exactly what was going on and gave us very constructive feedback.

We are now at the point of preparing for our final presentation a week on Friday. This includes suggestions of how the project should be carried on once we leave, for which we also need to ensure our spreadsheets are clearly explained and easily understood. This in itself has its own issues as the data we were given from the insurers was not always complete (or necessarily correct as we keep finding!) and so we are constantly receiving fresh data; this is obviously the most accurate and so we want to be able to use this data for the findings shown in our presentation.

I had my final insurer visit last Wednesday to Axa, where I met with a number of people within the company, both on the underwriting and actuarial side of the business. As well as finding out about how Axa functions, it was very interesting to hear their views on issues within insurance. As compared to my first few insurer visits to Allianz and Groupama, I feel like my knowledge of the insurance industry has grown tremendously, as I'm able to ask so many more insightful questions and actually keep up with the conversation! For those who read my first blog, I'm now speaking the insurance language of acronyms and abbreviations! In fact, we're currently composing a glossary for the person who takes over our project, as we don't yet know what insurance knowledge they will have. It's sad to think that I may leave Giles and London and never use any of this knowledge again, but on discussing this with my project manager Matt, I've acknowledged how important it can be to keep stimulating yourself with new knowledge and experiences, through which you learn invaluable transferrable skills and gain confidence- something I can verify has definitely happened this summer!

With Jenny home last weekend, Susan and I took a trip to London Dungeon- a nice historical experience with tales about Jack the Ripper and Sweeney Todd, with a number of rides including the UK's first 5D laser ride. After having been to Edinburgh Dungeon I wasn't particularly worried. Oh how I was wrong- I spent the entire evening screaming my head off, hiding behind Susan and holding her hand wherever possible!

The next day I went home for my cousin's wedding and Saltire can be proud- I was even networking! I found myself talking to the groom's uncle, who works for Deutsche Bank and used to work for Aviva, so not only has a range of contacts but also a variety of exposure in both the investment banking and insurance industry. As much as it was strange to be back in my normal life for a weekend, it was nice to be able to step back from the experience and get some perspective. It felt as though I'd been in London for years- I feel like so much about myself has changed since starting the internship. So many thoughts are going through my head right now about what I want to do in the future and I know Saltire has played a massive role in allowing me to have the confidence to explore my various options and get to where I want to go. It's a little overwhelming really!

Anyway this was meant to be a short blog- apparently there's no such thing for me!

Sarah x