Pros
Right out of college it’s a great starting off point, especially getting into the insurance industry. Get a feel for the “old school” side of large business. Get fully trained and get a little experience you can transfer to a different job. Bonuses are good BUT that doesn’t equal good pay. They pay for continuous education/insurance exams etc.
Cons
PAY IS ATROCIOUS. After 5 years working there and a college degree I barely made $45k - 5 YEARS. Started at $37,500. Underwriting is overall a pretty monotonous job, but when we are then asked to pretty much triple our workload for the unforseeable future with ZERO compensation, no thank you. Bonuses are not guaranteed and they remind you every year how “fortunate” we are to get them. A fantastic yearly review will get you about $1200-1500. Personal to commercial lines is now a lateral move with no pay increase. Where do personal lines underwriters go for a promotion? The answer is nowhere. There are only a handful of other “promotions” available and once they are filled good luck waiting years to get there. Promotions run about $500 pay increase - not worth the hassle imo. Creative thinkers and free spirits this is not your place! I’ve had amazing supervisors and I’ve had supervisors that made me want to jump off a cliff, it’s luck of the draw honestly. Outdated systems as well, a fortune 300 company using a DOS system is laughable. Management will tell you that relationships matter more than numbers - DO NOT LISTEN. Just be honest and say numbers are #1 and save everyone the hassle. Also honesty is a core value, but you don’t really get a lot of it from upper management - things are extremely hush hush. Also as a personal gripe, not having at least a refrigerator for employees but having multiple refrigerators that sell moldy food that we cannot store our food in is wrong - anything to make a profit and be stingy.
