When it comes to moving on to supervising an underwriting department, another skill you need is people skills: the ability to communicate effectively with those who might work for you and also to communicate with others outside of your company with whom you interface. One example of external communications is dealing with insurance agents, who are a critical part of a commercial underwriter job.
Another method for expanding your underwriting career is to always be aware of other underwriting job opportunities outside of your company. Being aware of these opportunities outside of your company is a smart idea anyway in the current economy, with some underwriting companies and insurance companies going out of business or being acquired by other companies.
Another path to growing as an underwriter is to be given more complex assignments that are larger underwritings and may have higher risks. By taking on more responsibility based on your judgment in assessing risk, you will gain recognition from your superiors and additional advancement if you do a good job with these other assignments.
One recent development which opens opportunities for underwriters is banks that are now involved in underwriting securities. These securities would include commercial paper, municipal revenue bonds, and securities backed by mortgages and consumer loans. This is now a huge area of opportunity since over $500 billion of financing occurs in the securities area. The recent severe financial problems for banks have resulted in banks pursuing securities underwriting as a way to increase profits. In addition, more securities underwriting opportunities exist for banks since many of the investment banks have merged with other investment banks or have completely gone out of business.
What is the career path of most underwriters? Usually underwriters work within a certain business line such as health, property, or life insurance. Within these lines, they work either on group or individual plans. Underwriters can also get promoted to other more specialized work such as liability or workers' compensation. Within these niches, underwriting opportunities will get a higher salary.
In terms of expanding your underwriting career, you need to understand how well you are performing in your current job. One key approach to assessing your current performance is to ask your boss for feedback on how you are doing. Although your company probably has an annual performance review, it is to your benefit to get feedback more often. Here is a list of some key questions you should ask your boss when getting feedback on your current performance:
- How would you rate my overall performance in my commercial underwriter job: satisfactory, unsatisfactory, or exceeds expectations? (Have your boss explain why he rated you the way he did.)
- What are the key areas where I need to improve?
- If there was one area of improvement you think I should most focus on, where would that be?
- Where do you see my career going and what suggestions do you have in terms of helping my career progress?
Within your current job, another way to expand a commercial underwriting job is to do such an effective job that your boss will give you a generous increase in salary. You should go beyond what is expected of you in your job and ask your boss what else you can do to help him or her achieve the objectives in your department. This proactive approach to helping your department will go a long way to having you considered for a good raise when annual salary review time occurs.
Another way you can expand a commercial underwriting job is to seek all the knowledge you can about your job so that you can grow. Many companies offer a tuition reimbursement program. You should research what types of training programs are available that the company would reimburse you for. Some of the training topics you might want to pursue include:
- How to review financial statements such as income statements and balance sheets.
- Cash flow analysis.
- How to make sense out of personal financial statements.
- Credit scoring methods—how credit scores work and how to analyze credit scores in terms of underwriting.
- Problem identification—how to spot problems before underwriting a bad deal.
- Problem loans—what to do with them and how to manage them.
- How to analyze commercial loans.
- Advanced underwriting techniques.
