What happens when you head off to Ibiza for two weeks’ partying (having alighted from your Ryanair flight fully sober, of course) only to trip over your suitcase in the hotel foyer and spend the entire holiday on crutches?
Or perhaps you’ve booked a dream cruise in the Mediterranean and your credit card falls out of your pocket into the briny while attempting a “King of the World” pose with your girlfriend?
Your first call, of course, is to the insurance company.
These are the people who should be able to sort out money, cover the cost of any medical treatment and even pay for flights and medical assistance to bring you home early, if necessary.
According to the Association of British Insurers, around £4 million is paid out every single week by insurance companies for the 4000 people who fall ill abroad.
Last year a total of £370 million was paid out for 581,000 claims. Amazingly, however, despite an average policy costing just £32, 22% of people still take the risk of travelling uninsured. What these figures suggest is that not only are there many clumsy, careless and downright unlucky travellers out there but that, if you follow a career in Insurance, you are never going to be out of work!
You can insure anything these days: not just holidays and the risk of calamity such as fire, flood and theft, but even the chance your bride will bolt before the wedding.
Or, if you are a supermodel, you can in a manner of speaking, cover your legs.
Insurance is a vast and varied field and on s1jobs there are vacancies at all levels and in many different sectors.
As the Construction industry picks up again, for instance, there is a renewed demand for Business Development Executives who can do the deals that will provide insurance for construction firms as they open up new sites for homes, hospitals and offices.
If you are a broker with a City background, then you’ll find exciting opportunities to work on large commercial insurance risk with exposure to corporate deals. The Insurance business originated at Lloyds of London and it is there that terms such as ‘underwriter’ first appeared: but the role is available in Scotland’s cities.
Shipping Insurance is still a very important sector and within it you can find underwriters who even today still specialise in piracy and war risks.
Motor Insurance is something with which most of us are familiar and there are vacancies here not just in selling cover but as Claims Handlers, where you could be responsible for deciding who is at fault.
This can be a sensitive area, but you’ll need all of your people skills if you want to work as a Personal Injury Advisor, where your role in the vast field of insurance will involve dealing with people who have suffered accidents.