What it’s about:

As an insurance major, you learn how to help people and businesses manage risk, recover from losses and plan for the future. You study the legal principles underlying insurance; the types of insurance (including liability, life, property); employee benefits and pension plans; the role of insurance in financial planning; risk assessment and loss evaluation; the preparation of insurance contracts (underwriting); and the ways insurance companies operate.

What the study of this major is like:

Individuals, families, and businesses invest in insurance to protect and provide for themselves if, one day, their situation changes or disaster strikes. Because people and businesses are increasingly looking to shield themselves from liability lawsuits (in which they may be held responsible, or liable, for harm to another) and losses resulting from serious illness, theft, or death in the family, job prospects in the insurance field continue to grow.

As an insurance professional, you will need to be a “people person” and in particular, be successful at relationship building. You should enjoy challenges, problem solving, and multitasking. And because every insurance contract represents an act of “utmost good faith,” you must also have a sense of integrity and responsibility.

In your first two years of study, you typically concentrate on the liberal arts (English, history, and sociology, for example). A core of business courses (such as accounting, economics, and management information systems) either overlaps with or follows your liberal arts courses. You usually take specialized insurance courses in your third and fourth years. These courses may focus on property loss and legal liability, as well as on employee-related plans dealing with health, disability, and retirement. In many courses, you’ll explore methods of minimizing the impact of such problems (risk management); then you’ll analyze how well these methods work.

Because insurance providers are regulated by the government, you need to become thoroughly familiar with the laws and rules that apply. You learn how to assess the risk taken by profit-seeking and nonprofit organizations-and how to respond to disaster. In classes on contracts, there is a lot of required reading. You also need to develop critical-thinking skills-the skills insurance underwriters and risk managers use in assessing potential losses to which organizations may be exposed.

Courses in the major build on and relate to each other, so as you progress through your studies, you’ll be applying what you learned in previous courses. Many programs encourage or require you to do internships that make use of the material you’ve studied in class. Internships are a good way to interact with industry professionals before you graduate.

Some programs, especially those preparing you for graduate school, are highly theoretical in their approach to insurance. Other programs take a more practical approach, teaching you the knowledge and skills you need if you plan to enter the workplace with a bachelor’s degree. Some colleges incorporate the insurance major into their finance programs.

Career options and trends:

Commercial lines underwriter*; property risk analyst*; liability risk analyst*; claims adjuster*; risk manager; broker/agent; financial planner; actuarial trainee; reinsurance intermediary or reinsurance underwriter.

Insurance executive report that one of their most critical problems is to find enough entry-level candidates educated in the professional areas discussed here.

Source: CollegeBoard 2012 Book of Majors