If you can determine the career that interests you prior to beginning college, it can cut down on your time and expenses on education.  Many students, however, really don't select an industry to work in until they are in college.  Some career planning strategies to help you decide:

Develop a career plan.  Begin thinking about what you want to do and find out more about the kind of training, skills and education that is needed for that occupation

Consider your skills and interests.  What do you enjoy to do, what are you good at, what is your personality, what values do you hold

Research industries and occupations that interest you.  Find out the potential for positions in that field in the future (at the time you will be looking), what salaries are, what working conditions are and what level education will be specifically required

Compare your skills and interest to the positions---is it a good match?

Choose a goal and plan your education--select a school that offers the education and training to help you meet that goal

IN THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY:

There are many varied positions within the insurance industry.  There are occupations with insurance companies, risk management firms, insurance agencies and brokers and claims adjusting firms.  It can be a very diverse and worthwhile career opportunity.  Some of the types of positions are listed below:

ACTUARIES-Actuaries work with statistical, financial and mathematical calculations involving the probability of future events.  They then develop the premiums to charge for policies covering that future event.  Actuaries normally work for insurance companies or other financial firms, have strong mathematical skills, hold a college degree in finance or mathematics and work in an office setting without a lot of client contact.

ADJUSTING-When a claim occurs, an adjustor works with the policy holder to determine the damages from the claim and make a settlement.  There are many types of claims adjustors: in-house company adjustors handle many claims over the phone and through review of submitted paperwork, outside adjustors meet with body shops, contractors and policy holders on major claims to determine the amount of the claims payment.  There are also litigation adjustors who work with attorneys on claims that involve lawsuits and managed care adjustors (including physicians and nurses) who work closely with injured parties on workers compensation, automobile and health insurance claims to determine level of treatment necessary under a claim.

AGENTS & BROKERS-Working with consumers, agents and brokers help to determine what types of exposures to a loss exist and how to best protect them.  They sell and service policies and assist the policyholder with questions on billing, types of coverage needed and submissions of claims.  Agents & brokers can be independent agencies (like our agency) that represents many different insurance companies or an agent can be an employee of a specific company.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY-As with any industry, information technology personnel are needed in the insurance industry.  Programs to run statistical data, issue policies, maintain databases and handle e-commerce transactions between companies & individuals and companies & agents are used.  

RISK MANAGEMENT SPECIALISTS-Working for insurance companies or large business entities, risk management personnel look at safety and occupation standards and determine what steps can be taken to reduce or eliminate risk.  They may also make the determination as to which exposures to loss should be self insured vs purchasing insurance.  Many of these people have engineering backgrounds.

UNDERWRITING-Underwriters review applications for insurance, determining whether or not a company should accept the risk based upon the premium that it can charge to take over the exposure to loss.  They may also make recommendations that an applicant can take to make the risk qualify for coverage.

These are just a few of the occupations available in the industry.  Within both companies and agencies there are management positions, accounting positions, sales & marketing positions, communications positions (including webmaster & public affairs), and legislative, legal or regulatory compliance positions including lobbying. 

One of the largest industries in the world, insurance will become even larger with financial services reform which took place the past few years allowing for the ability of firms to handle banking, insurance and securities.