Investing in future surplus lines professionals
Here’s how the Wholesale & Specialty Insurance Association’s Internship Committee fulfills a pressing need within the E&S insurance business.
The Wholesale & Specialty Insurance Association (WSIA) knows the future success of the surplus lines industry will depend on attracting the next wave of young professionals and showing them why a career in specialty insurance is so rewarding.
This summer, 20 interns received a firsthand look at how the E&S insurance industry operates when they participated in WSIA’s Internship Program, a nine-week opportunity for college juniors and seniors.
A singular experience
How does this internship program distinguish itself from others? Consider the fact that these interns spent five weeks with a carrier and four weeks with a wholesale broker, all of which were WSIA members.
Students began with a three-day orientation at WSIA’s Kansas City headquarters. There, members of WSIA’s Internship Committee talked about the industry and became acquainted with the interns.
At the end of the nine-week internship, interns completed an essay about their experience and shared it with the Internship Committee. They were evaluated by both their host and their mentor.
Ten of the 20 interns were then selected to attend the 2019 WSIA Annual Marketplace in September in San Diego, Calif., where interns shadowed committee members during business meetings, listened to educational sessions, and networked with the thousands of professionals in attendance.
At the conference, the committee awarded the top two interns with J.H. Blades Scholarships, which gives them the chance to study the London market for three weeks next summer.
The whole experience provides the interns with “the opportunity to see how the WSIA marketplace operates and how relationships are fostered,” says Richard Schmitzer, Internship Committee co-chair and president & CEO of James River Insurance Co.
The application process
This year’s interns were selected from a pool of 82 applicants. To be eligible for the program, applicants must be a current college junior or senior, have a cumulative GPA of 3.25 or higher and be a Risk Management and Insurance (RMI) major/minor, or have taken RMI courses or have work experience in risk management or in the insurance industry.
Schmitzer says the committee also looks at how involved interns are in with community associations. “We’re looking for well-rounded students that have an interest in coming to the insurance industry,” he notes.
WSIA covers travel and housing expenses and provides the intern with a stipend for internship-related expenses, while hosts are responsible for paying the interns a salary of $18 an hour. During the interns’ time with their carrier and broker host, they will rotate through all the departments within the hosts’ operation, allowing them to divvy their time between underwriting, accounting, claims and more.
Fulfilling an industry need
The need to draw future workers to the surplus lines industry is top-of-mind for many professionals in the field. To that end, WSIA formed its Internship Committee in 1981 to attract talent to the industry.
Since its inception, the program has offered paid summer internships to more than 333 students.
Bob Greenebaum, Internship Committee co-chair and executive vice president at CRC, says there is a soft goal of having 25 interns by 2025 in addition to continuing to expand the number of available WSIA hosts.
Greenebaum has been a part of the committee for six years, first with what was then NAPSLO’s board and now on WSIA’s board.
He says the internship has evolved since he first joined, but “It works really well, so we’re more tweaking than anything else.”
Future applicants will need to think about how they can stand out among candidates vying for this selective internship opportunity. They can start with Schmitzer’s evergreen advice:,“I would just encourage them to follow their passion, whether that be on the broker side or the carrier side, read everything you can get your hands on and really sort of understand the entire dynamic of the industry.”
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