WSIA’s Career Development Committee is focused on the future
Work continues in communicating the message about career potential within the E&S insurance industry.
Today’s aspiring insurance professionals have more training and career development resources at hand than ever before.
But that doesn’t mean selling young people on insurance careers has gotten any easier.
Fortunately, the roughly three dozen insurance professionals who sit on WSIA’s Career Development Committee — as well as several more members who serve as the Committee’s “speakers bureau” — consistently work to increase the number of college campuses and students they reach each year with a message about the boundless career potential within the Surplus Lines industry.
“The Career Development Committee continues to create exceptional awareness about our segment of the insurance industry,” says Committee Chair and Markel Assurance President Bryan Sanders. “This group is passionate about the opportunities that exist for college grads and works tirelessly to get the word out in fun and creative ways.”
How does the committee drive home the point with young people that a career in insurance is worth considering?
Committee members sometimes talk with college students about the variety and availability of insurance job openings, how critical the insurance business is to a healthy economy, how working in insurance produces consistent challenges and financial rewards, and that insurance professionals can make a tremendous difference in the lives of their clients.
Committee members often give presentations at schools near their homes and businesses or on the campuses from which they graduated.
“We are scheduled to reach out to or visit 31 campuses this fall,” says WSIA Career Development Programs Manager Chris Timmerman, “and estimate that we will reach a little over 1,900 students.”
That’s about 600 more students than the Committee reached this time last year. “We made a concerted effort to visit more campuses this year,” Timmerman adds.
Campus and symposium presentations also provide established professionals with a chance to laud the opportunity for travel within an insurance career, and to talk about how insurance tends to attract smart, driven, high-quality individuals. “I hear time and again from professionals that there are so many good people in the industry; good people to know and to work with,” Timmerman notes.
In addition to facilitating campus visits, the Career Development Committee works closely with the WSIA Education Foundation to produce three annual college symposiums: the 2018 Surplus Lines Symposium, happening Nov. 1-2 in Atlanta and hosted by Troy University; the Extreme Risk Takers Symposium scheduled for March 29-30 in Chicago and hosted by Illinois State University, and the Wholesale and Specialty Insurance Symposium hosted by Arizona State University in Tempe in October 2019.
In addition, the Committee and WSIA staff participate in career development events sponsored by Gamma Iota Sigma including their Leadership Symposium last month in Columbus, the GIS Annual International Conference, happening Oct. 4-6 at Chicago’s Navy Pier, and three GIS Regional Conferences being hosted January 25-26 at Ohio State University, Middle Tennessee University, and Florida State University.
Looking forward, Timmerman says the Committee will continue its mission to reach more campuses, more students, and more diverse regions within the U.S. To that end, the Committee aspires to organize a fourth annual symposium that they’d like to take place in California. They hope to get that event up and running no later than 2020.
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