Pros
The AEDP has incredible growth potential with exposure to a wide array of products, even when not working directly with them. The brown bags and conferences gave me a wide understanding of the company, its products, and its strategies. The management really encourages this learning and wants you to be well rounded and connected so you can become a leader in the organization. The results from the program are amazing - most members who complete it go on to be leaders in the company. Cigna and the AEDP is an excellent place to begin a career. The learning and exposure in the AEDP is so wide and deep, and the community encourages this immensely. I'm very glad I had the chance to be a part of this community and experience. If you want to be a business oriented actuary, there is no place better to be than Cigna's AEDP. Once you get through the program, you'll have plenty of exposure and knowledge for whatever product you want to work with, and Cigna has a very wide array of businesses. You'll almost surely find something you're passionate about to work on. Salary and Benefits are all good/competitive, though it may make sense to have a cost of living adjustment between locations rather than just have a standard $$$ the same for Philadelphia vs. Austin. 401K has a good match, reasonable insurance options, 18 days PTO to start, becomes 23 at FSA, plus the standard holidays. Plenty of study hours for exams, enough study materials covered by company as well.
Cons
The opportunities within the AEDP are all business oriented, and less technical than I hoped they would be. I had less influence in choosing my second rotation than I hoped for. If you're looking to be a technical specialist in the actuarial field working with cutting edge mathematics and predictive modelling, Cigna's AEDP probably isn't the place for you (though you may want to look at some of the roles in the TechDP since there's some marginal work going on there in the data science side of things).
