Grampa Jack nearly fell out of his armchair when he overheard Granny Ina on the phone with the undertaker.
It took Davey to explain Granny was actually talking to her life insurance agent about the advice of the underwriter.
No, Grampa, that’s not the one who writes the funeral speeches.
To make things a little clearer for Grampa Jack – and anyone looking to kickstart a brand new career in insurance – today we look in detail at the role of the underwriter.
So what’s it all about?
Insurance companies need to know the risks when insuring people and their precious things – not everything in life goes smoothly all of the time and when it all goes a bit Pete Tong they have to pay out big time.
Underwriting helps them here through the magical art of using statistics to predict the likelihood of each of these scenarios, then advising whether to go ahead with insuring and, if so, what premiums to charge.
There are four main areas where an underwriter can focus their skills. Working in general insurance covers areas such as our homes, holidays and cars, while life assurance deals with illness, injury and death.
Commercial insurance takes care of businesses and, finally, reinsurance is a specialist area where a portion of the risk is assumed by another party.
What’s in a working day?
The underwriter works directly for the insurance company, which means sensible office hours Monday to Friday. During this time you could be involved in studying policy proposals then collecting the necessary data to allow you to make an informed decision about how to proceed, based on all of the risk factors.
If it’s all systems go, the next step will be to calculate the premiums, as well as deciding whether the risk should be shared with another insurer.
Next up is negotiating terms with brokers.
Do all of this well and you could move from a starting salary of around £15,000 all the way up to six figures.
There are also opportunities to move into management or related roles, such as a risk manager or loss adjuster.
What do I need to start?
Further qualifications in mathematics, business or economics can be a great way to get a brogue in the door of a company or on to a graduate training scheme.
In reality, however, there are no hard and fast requirements.
Essentially having a brain that loves analysing data and a personality that thrives on coming up with problem-solving scenarios that please insurance companies and customers will be your biggest assets.
Now that the underwriter is understood why not undertake an assessment of top Insurance roles with s1jobs?