REVscene - Vancouver Automotive Forum

ASG111 · 03-26-2010, 12:59 PM

Posted in the employment resources forum, but didn't get any replies so figure id' get more traffic here..

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Anybody have done this before or has profound knowledge about it?

I understand an underwriter is just basically assessing the risks of a business and taking the risks for the business in exchange for a premium... well, not just business, but also personal and maybe specialty as well.

What i want to ask is do you like what you do and basically a step by step process of how it works on a daily basis...

Do you need to sell a lot of products? Or just offering the "right" one for them... IMO, offering them the "right" one is different from cold-selling them a product that the business doesn't really need. Yes, the more products you sell, the more income you generate, the better you are... but really, i just want your insight on your job.

And if I plan on going into banking in the future, is it really relevant to take up an underwriter job in the summer or fall?

Thanks in advance

Blinky · 03-26-2010, 03:28 PM

What type of insurance?

Could depend on the company, but an underwriter does not necessarily do sales. At my company, underwriters have very different jobs than the sales people - they interact, but their roles are very different.

We do property/casualty. In my company, the underwriter will take information that s/he has about the property, what goes on at the property and will decide "how much to bet" in setting the insurance premium. You could guess that a paint factory in Richmond is going to be a bigger risk than a low-rise office tower in Slurrey, for instance, so the premium would be modified accordingly.

If the client is a particularly poor risk or requires more (insurance) capacity than we can provide, an underwriter will also look at reinsurance. If the job you are looking at truly is underwriting, I cannot see it being a fall/summer(short-term) job.

Feel free to PM if you have other Qs.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time! · 03-27-2010, 01:39 PM

I would think that you are slightly confusing a broker with an underwriter in your above post OP. As Blinky mentioned, u/w don't necessarily engage in the 'sales' side or directly with clients. when I worked at an MGA group the in-house u/w would engage with brokers to assess the risk of each property the broker had submitted and for clarification where necessary.

The broker would be the one to analyze with the insured/client which plan would fit best with the qualities that they were looking for; then submitting an application to the underwriter.

A typical day at the previous p&c MGA that I worked for, everyday there would be brokers submitting applications looking for quotes, then the underwriters would go over the applications to see what condition the piece of property was in, what type of business (if any) was conducted there, what types of hazards could there be, the neighborhood it was in etc, and use these factors to determine which rate to use to provide the broker with a quote back to the insured.

Also you mention that you are looking into banking, I would believe that the experience on being able to assess risk would be beneficial as it shows that you have the ability to make tough decisions and account for risks involved.

Feel free to PM as well if you want more details.

ASG111 · 03-30-2010, 12:26 AM

Thanks guys... so wouldn't an underwriter essentially be the same as a risk analyst? i don't see how come there are 2 separate titles in the insurance industry

asian_XL · 03-30-2010, 01:44 AM

underwriting job is boring as hell. I am in the bancassurance industry and never want to
get in there. The entry requirement in life insurance is only certificate or dipolma , it
takes at least 4-5 years to jump from junior post to senior post. Turnover is quite high as
you can imagine, it's a fucking repetitive job. Good luck.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time! · 03-30-2010, 08:13 PM

^^ Underwriting can be quite interesting, there are some really major differences between the life side and the p & c side of insurance, so I don't think you can just generalize that. I've also known certain p & c underwriters whom have been in the business for 15+ years, many start out as brokers then move into underwriting so turnover rate is not necessarily high in career, but may be high within a given company.

also if I understand correctly, an underwriter is a type of risk analyst. there are different types of risk analysts such as financial risk analysts in banking and insurance risk analysts over in insurance. i would think the terms are interchangable depending on what type of business you're referring to.