Before joining Milliman, Safder was a vice president at Swiss Re, where he worked for 11 years and spent eight years covering the UK market and three years covering the Middle East market. His roles included pricing actuary, products and experience study actuary, working on alternative reinsurance structures including financial reinsurance, as well as serving as client manager and actuary for the Middle East region.

Safder was responsible for the family retakaful solutions at Swiss Re and helped to set up the Swiss Retakaful branch. He was instrumental in product design, pricing, and monitoring of the firm's family retakaful pools and was Swiss Re’s key link with the shariah board.

Safder focused on key markets in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Pakistan, and Turkey. He was also heavily involved in the medical business activities of Swiss Re in the Gulf, particularly in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.