Not sure if this is the right place to ask the question but I am having a career crises and feel I need a change in direction. How difficult is it to go from Health and Safety Manager to an auditor? I would be looking to gain a career within the insurance sector, so risk management. I guess gaining an additional qualification is necessary. I enjoy auditing, I prefer being direct in my career and I am just finding with H&S in businesses, they really do not want to know and you are there just as a tick box exercise. They don't take H&S instructions seriously. At least with auditing, its a different path. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your help. No I don't have quals in auditing but I do have experience over the years. I will look into the courses and see which is best.

Insurance companies use auditors/assessors to look at potential clients to evaluate how good, or bad, they are with a view to whether the insurance company should take them 'on risk'. The potential liabilities revealed by the assessment will either help to determine the premium, or in the worst cases lead to the insurance company declining to take them on. There are conflicting demands in this, in that the insurers do need to know what they are taking on, but at the same time they won't make any money by declining to take people on too often. The insurers will therefore be looking for a balanced and realistic assessment. Auditing skills are important, but you will mostly be looking for obvious risks and liabilities, rather than poring through their policy documents. Try and make yourself familiar with differing industry norms so that you can form a pragmatic opinion of the potential clients, who will come from almost any industry (a knowledge of the regulations is fine, but you need to know industry codes of practice etc to appreciate how the regulations are applied). You will also need a good camera - insurers like to see what a company looks like, and a picture can be worth more than a thousand words.