Oh, the Places You Can Go in Insurance

I recently had the opportunity to attend the CLM annual conference, hosted by the Claims and Litigation Management Alliance, and one of the sessions that I was interested in was about the hiring gap that the insurance world is deep in the middle of right now. Anyone who is still talking about Millennials is way behind because that generation is firmly in place. We need to be talking about how we get the next two generations into the insurance world beginning yesterday.

From what I gathered talking to people and paying attention to the younger attendees, I came away encouraged–especially if we continue on the culture path the insurance world seems to be embracing. If you read this and think to yourself that your current experience is way different from what I’m going to write about, you have to realize that your experience may not be what’s going on outside of your part of the world.

That might be something to consider.

The Rise of the Insurance and Risk Degree

Many of the people I know say that insurance found them. They were in the right place at the right time, looking for meaningful work–or just work–and an opportunity came up in the insurance world, and they never left. They found the work interesting and rewarding, but nothing in their lives really prepared them for what they would find as they began that phase of their careers.

Today, there are more opportunities to learn about the insurance world than ever before. Kids in high school can take insurance courses to learn about what the industry does. Community colleges provide pre-licensing education (in those states that still require it), and students are getting their undergraduate and graduate degrees in risk and insurance. Where I went to college, that wasn’t an option, but that’s another story.

All of this is signaling that even though the general population of the latest generations aren’t looking at insurance as a career, there is a set of people who see the value, understand the opportunities, and are actively looking for a career in our space. Welcome. Enjoy the ride.

For those who haven’t started their path looking for a career in the insurance world, let me offer you two specific traits of a career in insurance that I have experienced and that the people I spoke with and heard from at the conference mentioned to me.

There’s More Going On Than You Think

When I tell people that I work in insurance, they always, without fail, think that I sell insurance. I am not, nor have I ever been, a licensed insurance agent. I came up as an underwriter. I haven’t sold insurance. I have taken in applications and wondered what agents were thinking, but I’ve never been the agent wondering what the underwriter was thinking.

That’s the thing: Whatever people think they know about the insurance world, they only know part of it. Yes, there are still insurance agents. That should be obvious because you’ve seen their offices and billboards all over your town.

There are jobs in every profession that touch the insurance world. If you’re interested in tech, we have a ton of tech people in insurance. If you are a detail-oriented person, we have space for you in claims and underwriting. The point is that there are more insurance jobs than growing up to be “Ned the Head.”

Your Career Does Not Have to Be a Straight Line

Some people look at a career in insurance as a life sentence behind a desk in an office somewhere under fluorescent lights that sap your energy until you finally retire. That’s totally not true. Well, it could be if that’s what you want it to be, but it doesn’t have to be. Work in the insurance world is as varied as you want it to be.

A person can come into insurance in underwriting and spend their entire career working in different kinds of underwriting. You could start in commercial property and spend a few years there. Maybe you will get into business income from there. It’s easy to think that you could end up in different casualty (liability) lines from there. It’s also possible to get into a niche where you’re writing multiple lines for a specific class of business, like contractors or fireworks distributors. (Yeah, they need insurance.)

If you get into underwriting and find that it isn’t for you, you can change. I’ve known people who have spent a few years in underwriting and found jobs as an outside claims adjuster. That means they went from a desk job to a job where they were outside all the time, climbing up on roofs or taking pictures of vehicles that have been in accidents. If you’re a math expert, there are insurance jobs for you.

The point is that there are jobs for every different personality and for all kinds of interests.

In my insurance life, I started in underwriting and spent years working as an underwriter. I loved that work. I met agents from around the country and got to see risks of all sorts, even in the niche markets where I was working. My next job was working as an underwriting trainer at an insurance company. While I was doing that, I also got the chance to train adjusters, agents, and more. From there, I moved to my current role, where I get to teach insurance topics and write for Insurance Journal.

This career can take you wherever you want to go.

You Can See New Things All the Time

I’ve heard people say the insurance world is boring. That’s just because they think that we spend every day reading and writing emails, answering the phone, and selling insurance policies that no one understands,and no one has ever read.

That might be true for someone in the insurance world, but I don’t know that person. If you know someone who has a boring insurance job, have them email me. I have questions.

The insurance world is anything but boring because insurance touches everything. You wouldn’t have ChatGPT unless some insurance company decided that OpenAI was a worthy risk to write insurance on just in case something bad happens with the chatbot. You can’t drive cars without insurance. You don’t have professions without insurance. SpaceX doesn’t provide Starlink internet without insurance.

‘Today, there are more opportunities to learn about the insurance world than ever before.’

The thing that people don’t think about in the insurance world is that any day, an insurance professional doesn’t necessarily know exactly what phone calls, emails, or applications are going to come in. It doesn’t matter if the insurance professional is an agent, an underwriter, or an adjuster.

All of these positions will deal with something that they didn’t see coming every week of their insurance life.

In my career, I’ve seen accidents where an ambulance came around the corner and crashed into a herd of cattle. I’ve seen property losses where insureds refused to repair the flooded property until the mold took over the building and it had to be demolished. I’ve heard about calls asking if a driver was covered if they drove without a seatbelt because it got in the way of their morphine pump. And there’s more.

Last Thoughts

The insurance world is vast and touches all of life. It also is a great place to begin to discover who we want to be when we grow up. Never allow anyone to tell you that insurance is all about selling, or sitting at a desk, doing mind-numbing work. It can be as exciting as you want it to be. This work can take you anywhere and show you things you never thought you would see.

Wraight, CIC, CRM, AU, is director of Insurance Journal’s Academy of Insurance. He can be reached at pwraight@ijacademy.com.