A student interviewed for an entry-level position with a national insurance company and was asked what he has learned about the industry in his classes. He rattled off some hands-on experiences: a project as an undergrad in which he and his team worked with a regional carrier to consolidate SaaS contract language, a cyber risk assessment provided to a local non-profit, and an insurance coverage review for another local organization. He was hired as he provided actionable experience that will be relevant to his new employer.

Making education relevant

As I have developed my curriculum, I have looked for opportunities to incorporate relevancy so students will be able to become productive to their new employers more quickly. In the insurance operations course, the assignments exposed students to several different technologies that impact various areas of insurance organizations. They started with underwriting a farm risk, then used the Gauge tool from Athenium Analytics to decide if the risk score for their specific insured needed the premiums adjusted.  The Gauge tool provided excellent visualization of various weather-related exposures to the students who have little understanding of how specific weather events may impact a risk. The other benefit is that it was easy to use and intuitively designed. The students made informed decisions as a result.