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Insurance is the only profession I know of where there are many senior leaders in their forties without a degree.

by etothepii 4y ago

analog31 4y ago
Traditionally, how did they get in? Did they come up through sales, or through family businesses?
- jabroni_salad 4y ago
  There are multiple paths and different designations you need to earn to work them. The more letters you can get after your name, the better. So you don't need a degree, but there is a moat to cross. Agencies: oops, all sales! Claims Adjustment: small claims to bigger claims. These are usually independent outfits that service many carriers for their geographic area. In some jurisdictions you can get hired with no experience but you will earn more if you have any kind of background in accounting or appraisal. Quote & Bind | CSR >> assistant underwriter >> underwriter >> sr. underwriter. These are your big corpo jobs at an operations center.
  - etothepii 4y ago
    Perhaps this is true in the US, but I don't think it is true in the Lloyds market. Which is ultimately where large chunks of the US risk ends up. The US state level control of insurance does create substantial opportunities for regulatory capture by licensure.
- etothepii 4y ago
  In the UK it is not formally an apprentice system but from the outside it looks a lot like an apprentice system combined with luck. While graduate entry is common now (since our University system is only £10k a year for tuition and the money can be borrowed from the state) Lloyd's still runs an apprentice program that has an intake at 18. Junior people joining the industry will typically be given a great deal of grunt work to do and there can be opportunities to learn the lingo that come with that. Relationships are a large part of the industry and so passing these on from parent to child does happen but a lot of it appears to me to be less direct than that, and so ending up in an apprentice-like relationship with a senior underwriter can cause your career to soar. It can be very hard for senior underwriters who feel that they have built up high quality relationships over decades to work out how to profit from those in retirement and many fail to fully capitalise on them.

Insurance is the only profession I know of where there are many senior leaders in their forties without a degree.

analog31 4y ago

Traditionally, how did they get in? Did they come up through sales, or through family businesses?

jabroni_salad 4y ago
There are multiple paths and different designations you need to earn to work them. The more letters you can get after your name, the better. So you don't need a degree, but there is a moat to cross. Agencies: oops, all sales! Claims Adjustment: small claims to bigger claims. These are usually independent outfits that service many carriers for their geographic area. In some jurisdictions you can get hired with no experience but you will earn more if you have any kind of background in accounting or appraisal. Quote & Bind | CSR >> assistant underwriter >> underwriter >> sr. underwriter. These are your big corpo jobs at an operations center.
- etothepii 4y ago
  Perhaps this is true in the US, but I don't think it is true in the Lloyds market. Which is ultimately where large chunks of the US risk ends up. The US state level control of insurance does create substantial opportunities for regulatory capture by licensure.
etothepii 4y ago
In the UK it is not formally an apprentice system but from the outside it looks a lot like an apprentice system combined with luck. While graduate entry is common now (since our University system is only £10k a year for tuition and the money can be borrowed from the state) Lloyd's still runs an apprentice program that has an intake at 18. Junior people joining the industry will typically be given a great deal of grunt work to do and there can be opportunities to learn the lingo that come with that. Relationships are a large part of the industry and so passing these on from parent to child does happen but a lot of it appears to me to be less direct than that, and so ending up in an apprentice-like relationship with a senior underwriter can cause your career to soar. It can be very hard for senior underwriters who feel that they have built up high quality relationships over decades to work out how to profit from those in retirement and many fail to fully capitalise on them.