Hello readers of the blog.
Here is a quick survey I’ve decided to conduct.
I read this morning on the front page of the AI CPCU (American Institute of Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters) about the increasing job opportunities and the vast opportunities that will exists in the next ten years or so, based on the fact that the Baby Boomer generation is ready or getting ready to retire (if they haven’t lost their entire retirement fund in the market, forcing them to work until approximately age 90.) This made me ponder the many points of my career thus far, which although I don’t pretend that I’ve been around for all together that long, I have met my fair share of people considering.
We work in financial services, an industry that is so incredibly welcoming to young talent willing to bust their chops to climb up the corporate ladder. Think of our friends for a minute who work in other industries, who had to start out as someone’s assistant to eventually work their way up to a decent salary and a position where they hold some responsibility for the results they are supposed to produce. Finance generally speaking offers enormous opportunity right from the get-go where young graduates can actually get their hands wet with clients instead of just fetching coffee.
This brings me (finally) to my point, using the age of 55 as a threshold, I really don’t find that there are THAT many baby boomers that will be leaving open positions. I’d say that 85% of the brokers I’ve collaborated with or other underwriters I’ve worked with are actually under 45, meaning that they have another 20 years MINIMUM to work before I can even begin to think about usurping their position!
So my question to you- demographically around your office- do you see that there will be lots of new opportunities popping up in the next 5-10 years- or is the Media just toying with our emotions?
Retirement & your career: Baby Boomers head to Early Bird Specials
Ask and Ye Shall Recieve
Hi Guys,
in the complete and utter absence of questions from the crowd, I’m going to talk about exactly what I did today at work.
I walked into the office at roughly lightening speed at 9:02 am, because the Tram I take to get to work was running late (LIAR- I accidently slept for 15 more minutes).
I turned on my computer and accessed the various systems that I might need over the course of the day- one for checking Claims activity, the Archiving system, and Outlook. This took about 15 minutes during which I updated myself on msnbc.com, corriere.it (major Italian newspaper) and did a Wikipedia search on the history of Santa Claus... which seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
Then I went and had a lovely caffé macchiato, which took about five minutes.
After that I spent about 3 hours responding to emails, correcting policies, translating an extension from English to Italian, trying to avoid a broker who called me 5 times for something that isn’t even from my department.
Then I went to lunch. I had a lovely plate of pasta al forno with a Coca Light followed by a normal caffé. After lunch, I took a lovely stroll behind the Columns of Saint Lawrence (San Lorenzo).
After lunch, I received a few Bind Orders- because I’m cool like that, so I sent instructions to book the premium into our system and confirmed the coverage to the respective brokers. After confirming said coverage, I had a lovely but totally non insurance related conversation with one of these brokers, who kind of loves me in this moment because of a fantastic quote I put out about a week ago.
That is my story.
Questions?
Comments?
Risk- not just a board game (Australasia...is, fyi, the key to success)
Ciao Ragazzi,
Another week in the financial world that has made me think of some interesting things. But essentially I’m going to skip over all those interesting things and go straight to something I read this morning on one of my favorite political blogs.
Political risk in foreign markets. This is something that I’m sure we’ve all studied, and definitely something that we have to think about from the Insurance side of the world. I also happen to find this fascinating. The article in sweetness & light spoke of how foreign investors are pulling out of Russian markets due to an instable political situation which caused a precipitous fall in trading. This goes back to some of my recent posts about the fantastic mingling between finance and government. Who controls assets- and what does that mean to private entities?
This is something that we think of often (or at least we should) as Insurers- especially to be honest, since I’ve been working in Europe. Why you may ask? Lets think of a basic Commercial General Liability (RCT as abbreviated in Italy) policy for an international law firm. Lets say, this firm has 3 offices, one in New York, one in Milan (otherwise I probably wouldn’t care to look at it being a snob about these things) and one in the middle of Kenya (you know, like most big international law firms have that oh so important Kenyan office). As an Underwriter, one must take into account the political enviroment in NY, Milan and Kenya and the possible ramifications on the property if, as happens so very often in New York, tribal wars break out. Seized or destroyed property becomes an Insurance claim.
While underwriting Professional liability, lets say, for our imaginary international law firm, the socio-political enviroment is something that should weigh fairly heavily on rating applied to said prospective Insured. For example, Americans (and particularly certain jurisdictions within America) are far more litigious than Italians here, which is why we can underwrite policies at premiums that are shockingly low compared to the premiums that would be generated in the New York marketplace.
Just some food for thought, which I find interesting (I TOLD you all that if you didn’t ask questions that I was going to ramble on about Insurance…I don’t lie about serious things like this).
I put my pants on one leg at a time, and once I've got my pants on, I make gold records
Hello readers,
Sorry that it has taken so very long to post this week- but I’ve been rather caught up in election fever. The only solution was clearly more cowbell. But now, its all over so we can all go back to our everyday American (ex-pat) lives. While I’d love to blog about the outcome of the election and the effect it will have on the market, I will not- partially because I’m upset about the actual outcome and partially because I think the Obama tax plan will- in the long run- stifle the economy. One of the key strategies for getting out of this mess is to allow the free flow of capital through the markets and economy in general (who didn’t like that little extra something from President Bush a few months back…I used it to pay my student loan for a few months, therefore buying myself peace of mind). It is of course, much harder to allow the free flow of capital through the markets and economy when the taxes you pay are higher and therefore you don’t have the money to blow on those little things (I so wanted to buy a vespa…mint green…very Roman Holiday).
Anyway, a lot of corporations are getting ready to release 3rd quarter results. What are you all expecting??? It won’t be good for anyone I dare say- but frankly, I think that in the next 2 quarters we’re going to see a bottom from which we can all grow. With everything that happened in September how on earth is it going to be possible to post gains??
But then again, this might really be the opportunity for our generation to build up a nice investment portfolio at those rock bottom prices that will bring us our millions in the future. This is a lesson I learned from my father- who got it from his father. My Grandfather worked for AT&T, he wasn’t an executive but he was a hard worker who believed in his company- or at least believed enough in his company to invest in it too. It worked well for him, and at these prices you can’t lose (well, you can- but you get it).
Take my investment advice here my friends, my hot tip last week (you know, forget the markets and place bets on the Phillies) turned out to be spot on, which makes my hit ratio higher than Jim “buy Lehman stock even though its going to fail in a week” Cramer.
