Preparing for an interview at Verisk Analytics requires a balanced approach. You cannot rely solely on your technical skills, nor can you get by on communication alone. The most successful candidates demonstrate a structured mindset, technical accuracy, and a genuine interest in the business of risk.

Technical Proficiency – You must be highly comfortable with data manipulation, particularly in Microsoft Excel. Expect to demonstrate your ability to write formulas, clean unstructured data, and build basic financial or statistical models under time constraints.

Problem-Solving & Analytical Rigor – Interviewers care deeply about how you think. When presented with a case study or an ambiguous problem, focus on structuring your thoughts logically, stating your assumptions clearly, and explaining the "why" behind your analytical choices.

Communication & Presentation – A key part of the Risk Analyst role is translating data into stories. You will be evaluated on your ability to present technical findings clearly, design professional slides, and defend your methodologies during Q&A panels.

Cultural Alignment & Values – We value collaboration, continuous learning, and intellectual humility. Be prepared to discuss how you navigate team dynamics, how you handle feedback, and why you are passionate about the risk analytics industry.

The interview process for the Risk Analyst position at Verisk Analytics is structured to thoroughly evaluate your technical capability, business acumen, and cultural alignment. While the exact steps can vary slightly by location and team, the overall progression is designed to be transparent, rigorous, and highly focused on practical skills.

The journey typically begins with an initial screening, which may be a conversational call with a recruiter or an asynchronous on-demand video recording. This is followed by a technical assessment stage, which often involves a timed take-home case study or an Excel-based data analysis test. The final stage brings you face-to-face (either virtually or in-person) with the hiring manager and broader team members for a series of behavioral panels and a presentation of your technical work.

Throughout this process, Verisk Analytics interviewers look for candidates who remain calm under pressure, communicate their logic clearly, and show a strong command of analytical tools. The timeline can range from a rapid three weeks to a couple of months, depending on the office location and the complexity of the team's scheduling.

The timeline shown above outlines the typical progression from your initial application to the final hiring decision. Candidates should use this visual roadmap to pace their preparation, ensuring they dedicate sufficient time to practicing Excel modeling before the technical stage and refining their presentation delivery ahead of the final panel. While some steps may run concurrently depending on the location, mastering each phase sequentially is key to maintaining momentum.

To excel in the Verisk Analytics interview process, you must understand the specific competencies our hiring teams are trained to evaluate. This section breaks down the core assessment areas you will encounter.

Excel & Data Analysis

This area evaluates your hands-on technical skills. You will be tested on your ability to work efficiently with data, write precise formulas, and draw accurate conclusions from raw sheets.

Be ready to go over:

• Core Formulas – Mastery of XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, SUMIFS, and nested logical statements.
• Data Structuring – How to clean messy text, handle missing values, and structure tables for analysis.
• Data Summarization – Efficient use of Pivot Tables, calculated fields, and conditional formatting to highlight key risk indicators.
• Advanced Excel concepts – Understanding basic macros, Power Query, or data modeling practices that optimize repetitive tasks.

Example scenarios:

• "Given a dataset of 10,000 policyholders, segment them by risk tier and calculate the average loss ratio for each tier using formulas."
• "Identify and correct three data entry errors in this property asset schedule within 20 minutes."

Case Study & Scenario Modeling

Here, interviewers evaluate your business logic and methodological soundness. You will be given a real-world scenario and asked to build a structured approach to analyze the risk.

Be ready to go over:

• Methodology Selection – Explaining why you chose a specific risk framework or analytical approach.
• Assumption Setting – Clearly identifying and justifying the assumptions you make when data is missing.
• Sensitivity Analysis – Understanding how changes in key variables (e.g., natural hazard frequency, inflation rates) impact the final risk output.

Example scenarios:

• "Build a simple model to project the financial impact of a 1-in-100-year flood event on a portfolio of commercial real estate."
• "Explain the steps you would take to evaluate the cyber risk profile of a mid-sized financial services firm."

Presentation & Communication

This stage tests your ability to influence others and translate complex analytical findings into strategic recommendations for business leaders.

Be ready to go over:

• Slide Design – Creating clean, professional PowerPoint slides that tell a logical story without overwhelming the audience with text.
• Executive Summary – Delivering a concise "bottom-line-up-front" overview of your findings before diving into the technical details.
• Handling Q&A – Defending your methodology calmly and constructively when challenged by team members.

Example scenarios:

• "Present the results of your technical case study to a panel of five team members, simulating a client delivery meeting."
• "Explain the concept of 'probable maximum loss' to a stakeholder who has no background in statistics."

As a Risk Analyst at Verisk Analytics, your daily routine will involve a dynamic mix of independent data work and collaborative strategy sessions. You will be responsible for owning specific analytical pipelines and ensuring that risk metrics are calculated with the highest degree of accuracy.

On a typical day, you might start by running data quality checks on newly ingested client portfolios, ensuring that key underwriting variables are complete and formatted correctly. You will spend a significant portion of your time building and refining models in Excel, analyzing historical loss data, and identifying trends that could impact future risk pricing.

Collaboration is a constant theme in this role. You will work closely with actuarial specialists to validate model outputs, coordinate with software engineers to integrate your data findings into core Verisk platforms, and assist client-facing teams in preparing technical reports. You will also be responsible for continuously documenting your methodologies, ensuring that all analyses are reproducible and transparent.

We look for candidates who possess a strong quantitative foundation combined with excellent interpersonal skills. The ideal candidate is a self-starter who enjoys solving ambiguous problems and is comfortable working with large datasets.

• Must-have skills – Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel (nested formulas, pivot tables, data modeling), strong quantitative and analytical reasoning, and excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Nice-to-have skills – Familiarity with SQL for database querying, basic programming knowledge in Python or R, and prior exposure to the insurance, actuarial, or catastrophe modeling industries.
• Experience level – Typically requires a bachelor’s degree in a quantitative field (such as Mathematics, Statistics, Economics, Finance, or Engineering) and 1–3 years of experience in an analytical role.