The Industry Goes to School: Universities That Offer Insurance Degrees

Twenty years ago, it was nearly impossible to find colleges and universities offering degrees in insurance. Now there are many programs across the nation that offer bachelor’s degrees, concentrations, certifications and even graduate degrees in insurance.

Children of agents and brokers who want to follow in their parents’ footsteps and work for the family agency can greatly benefit from a formal education in insurance. They will have a distinct advantage over those starting out with no prior knowledge of the industry.

For those people already working full time in the industry, there are online programs that can increase students’ earning power and competitiveness in the job market.

Whether students are just starting out in the industry or consider themselves veterans, a degree in insurance can only benefit them in their careers. Insurance Journal profiled five universities that offer undergraduate and graduate degrees in insurance. There are other universities that offer similar programs throughout the country. If you know of a great school that offers insurance degrees, please e-mail dlove@insurancejournal.com.

Cal State Fullerton
Center for Insurance Studies, Finance Department
Location: Fullerton, Calif.
Degrees offered: Bachelor of arts in business administration, with a concentration in finance
Number of students: 731
Year Program started: 1998
Curriculum offered: Classes include principles of risk management and insurance; business property and liability risk management; life and health insurance; personal financial planning; retirement and estate planning; and introduction to actuary science.
Career potential: Jobs with insurance companies such as underwriter, claims adjuster and customer representative, application analyst, business analyst, financial analyst, actuary and risk manager. “We are trying to start a new program called the Insurance Marketing Entrepreneur Program to equip our students to be ready to be a broker or agent,” said Dr. Weili Lu, program director. That would be a joint venture with CSU Fullerton’s marketing department and is currently being discussed.
What the program offers students: Lu said that students become specialized in an industry with long-term stability and they have high passing rates on CPCU exams. “Studying insurance made our students one step above the others because they know insurance,” she said. “We are very much career-oriented, very practical. Each section of our course requires the instructor to have a speaker from the industry and our center hosts different company symposia of executives from different companies.” Lu said that the Center has received strong support from the industry, including member companies such as Mercury, Auto Club of Southern California, Pacific Life, Aon and New York Life. Executives from large insurance companies give standing-room only lectures and also serve on an advisory board.

What makes the program unique: Lu said that there are three things that distinguish Cal State Fullerton’s program from others, including scholarships, internships and job opportunities. Last year, the Center gave out $38,000 in scholarships. Under the Center’s internship program, member companies donate intern opportunities to students. “They get their feet wet before they even get out,” Lu said. In the last six years the Center placed 465 students in personal and commercial lines positions. Lu attributed this to strong connections to the industry. “Our roots in the industry make this program successful,” Lu said. “Our program and the industry all benefit. People ask me, ‘How come your program grows so fast?’ I always say because I came to the right place, met the right people and we are doing the right thing. We make sure our students are well trained for a finance career.”

Web site: http://business.fullerton.edu/centers/cis/
For more information: Contact Dr. Weili Lu, (714) 278-3679

Troy University
Department of Risk Management and Insurance
Location: Troy, Ala.
Degrees offered: Bachelor of arts/bachelor of science with a major in risk management and insurance; a certification program for college graduates who have other degrees
Number of students: 78
Year program started: 2000
Curriculum offered: Eight insurance courses, including principles of risk management and insurance; surplus lines and reinsurance; life and health insurance; property and liability insurance; agency management; insurance operations; corporate risk management; and risk management and insurance seminar.
Career Potential: About half of the students go into commercial lines underwriting upon graduation, and about 10 to 15 percent become claim adjusters. Other graduates serve as risk managers in corporate risk management departments, often in a property or liability capacity. The rest of the graduates become brokers in the surplus lines area. Carol Jordan, chair of the department, started two brokerage houses so that her students could get intern experience as a broker. “I would say over the next 10 years, the demand for people in this area is so great,” Jordan said. “Every single one of my students gets hired–they usually have three or four job offers.”
What the program offers students: “If you’re coming out with a degree in marketing or English lit or biology and you get hired in an insurance company or a brokerage firm it takes you a long time to learn the language, the contracts and what’s going on,” Jordan said. “Our students have done all that because they’ve had eight courses, they’ve had internships, they’ve had speakers from the industry, so when they get hired they hit the ground running. A degree puts [them] about two years ahead of anybody else. They know all the contracts, they know the legalities and the regulations of claims adjusting and underwriting and what you can do and what you can’t do. They know how surplus lines is regulated versus the admitted market, and they know what it means to be admitted or to be nonadmitted.”
What makes the program unique: The program’s specialization in surplus lines makes Troy unique. “I tried to carve out a niche that all the students could get jobs in if they wanted and surplus lines is that niche,” Jordan said. “We try to see that as many students as possible get internships and more in brokerage than any other place.” The department also offers a symposium that submerges students in surplus lines. The symposium usually includes speakers from Lloyd’s of London, the National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices and presidents of various companies and brokerages in the surplus lines business. Other students from different universities are invited to attend the symposium. “It gives them a shot at some employers they might not otherwise meet, and it helps our students interact with students from other universities,” Jordan said. “It helps them to network.”
Web site: http://scob.troy.edu/departments/ rmi/
For more information: Contact Carol Jordan, (334) 670-5833

Appalachian State University
Department of Finance, Banking and Insurance
Location: Boone, N.C.
Degrees Offered: Bachelor of science in business administration degree, with a major in risk and insurance
Number of students: 100-120
Year program started: 1979
Curriculum offered: Students take principles of risk management and insurance as an introductory course, and then take courses in personal lines property and liability, commercial lines property and liability, and risk management. Students can also enroll in classes such as retirement and employee benefits, financial planning and estate planning.
Career potential: Most of the graduates, about 75 percent, serve as underwriters or claims adjusters in the property/casualty industry. The remaining 25 percent become agents or brokers or corporate risk managers.
What the program offers students: “For the students, the benefit is that they can really hit the ground running,” said David Wood, Freeman Professor of Insurance. “They know what they’re getting into. We give them a very broad base education to the industry. We prepare them to understand who employers are and we also equip them with a finance education. They have options to take additional financial courses. We think that prepares them very well for careers.”
What makes the program unique: “The small size and the fact that we are a teaching institution makes us unique,” Wood said. “There’s a lot of faculty/student interaction. We pride ourselves on having faculty in the classroom.” Students also have educational travel opportunities. They have visited New York and Las Vegas, and may soon travel to London. The school is reportedly well-known for its study abroad programs. “We work real hard to get our students to get involved in the industry, in keeping up with the current issues and we also try to get them an international perspective,” Wood said.
Web site: http://www.business.appstate.edu/ departments/finance/
For more information: Contact Dr. David Wood, (828) 719-8278

Georgia Southern University
Department of Finance and Quantitative Analysis
Location: Statesboro, Ga.
Degrees Offered: Bachelor of business administration in finance with a concentration in risk management and insurance
Number of students: 20
Curriculum Offered: Principles of risk management and insurance; business insurance; and personal insurance planning. In these courses, students learn the concept of insurance, the industry, regulatory issues, marketing systems and company operations, personal auto and homeowners insurance, commercial insurance such as property and liability and employee benefits-related coverages.
Career Potential: “Our program offers a lot of flexibility,” said Chris Paul, chair of the department. “Students that are interested in a personal finance career, such as an insurance agent/broker or financial planner, can concentrate on the personal insurance courses as well as estate planning, tax and investments. Students that are interested in a career in an insurance company have those options as well as the general finance curriculum, which gives them a strong grounding in the fundamentals of managing cash flows and intermediation.”
What the program offers students: Paul said that Georgia Southern’s program differs from others in Georgia because it is essentially a finance course rather than just risk and insurance. “That provides our students with a broader background in financial services in general,” he said. “In recent years, there has been a relaxation of the long-standing restrictions on mixing financial services such as banking and insurance in the same firm, and that is one of the strengths we see with our program. The students have a lot of flexibility in the curriculum while still covering the basics. We are teaching them more about concepts and less about specifics. As the barriers between financial services firms are reduced, both here and internationally, effective managers are going to have to have some understanding of all of these various types of financial services and products: life insurance, property/casualty insurance, bank loans, investments and retirement plans.”What makes the program unique: “One of the key strengths of our program here at Georgia Southern University is that we begin with the assumption that the student has to be well-rounded in all aspects of financial services and then we allow them to specialize to some degree in a particular area,” Paul said. “Our students are at least passingly familiar with the concept of banking and investments and understand the role that insurance and the insurance industry plays within that framework.”
Web site: http://coba.georgiasouthern.edu/ depts/finquant/
For more information: Contact Chris Paul, (912) 681-5161

Florida State University
Department of Risk Management and Insurance
Location: Tallahassee, Fla.
Degrees offered: Bachelor of science with major in risk management and insurance; Master’s of management with a major in risk management/insurance (offered online); Ph.D. with a major in risk management and insurance
Number of students: 150
Year program started: 2000 (master’s program); 1940s (undergraduate program)
Curriculum offered: For the online master’s program, students take eleven courses covering operations, contracts, risk management, accounting, investments, life, benefits and the legal environment. Undergraduates take life and health insurance products; property and casualty insurance products; property and casualty insurance operations; and commercial risk management.
Career potential: Most graduate students are already employed in the insurance industry in underwriting, risk management, claims and production. For undergrads, career opportunities exist in the fields of marketing (including agency and brokerage), underwriting, loss control, claims and risk management for noninsurance corporations.
What the program offers students: “It gives students insight into the entire picture of insurance,” said Patrick Maroney, associate dean for graduate programs. “It allows students to appreciate the implications beyond their narrow responsibilities. It is a credential that is viewed very favorably.” The undergraduate department annually holds its own two-day placement program and almost all graduates seeking employment are placed upon graduation. There are also internship opportunities while the FSU Insurance Society is a forum for students, faculty, and business leaders to interact outside the classroom environment.
What makes the program unique: “It is the only online program offered by an accredited AACSB school of business,” Maroney said. “All the courses are taught by full-time faculty. Our undergraduate program is ranked in the top 10 by U.S. News and World Report.” Web site: http://www.cob.fsu.edu/rmi/
For more information: Contact Patrick Maroney, (850) 644-8217 for graduate programs and Dean Gatzlaff, (850) 644-4070, for undergraduate programs.

Topics Agencies Claims Excess Surplus Georgia Underwriting Education Property Market Training Development Universities Property Casualty Risk Management