1. 100% Employment: One of the big reasons to go to college is to make sure you're employed in a good career after you graduate. The insurance industry is predicted to continue growing for decades, and the existing risk management and insurance (RMI) programs only feed 15% of its needs each year, which means if you graduate with an RMI degree you'll be a hot commodity! RMI programs had 100% employment, even through the 2008-2012 recession.
2. An RMI degree is basically a focused business degree: Majoring in business is a very popular choice already, but it's a very general degree that usually takes a few years to really get you a solid career. RMI degrees are usually housed by a university's school of business and have all the usual classes you'd get in a business degree (accounting, finance, marketing, statistics, management, etc) with the addition of a few RMI specific classes. What this means is that even if you change your mind and decide you don't want to work in insurance (which you won't), you can still easily get the same jobs that you would have been getting with a general business degree.
3. It is preparation for a career making a difference: If you love making a difference in the world, you'll absolutely love the insurance industry! Even though we get a bad name in the press sometimes, the reality is that we are here to help people and businesses get back on their feet when unexpected things happen, and being a part of that is very rewarding. Also, many carriers offer time off to volunteer and to study for insurance designations.
4. Insurance is an incredibly stable career: The economy will continue in its ebbs and flows, and that means every few years people will lose their jobs when the economy contracts. Some very popular careers like banking, consulting and real estate are usually among the worst-hit when the economy slows. Insurance is incredibly stable because pretty much regardless of what happens in the overall economy, people and businesses continue to need insurance. This means career stability for you!
5. You'll have more vacation than most of your friends: Most insurance carriers start you up with around 18 days of vacation a year. That means much more time off than most employees just starting careers in other industries.
6. Your senior year will be a LOT less stressful: RMI majors are expected to continue to be in high demand and feed only a portion of the insurance industry's need for new talent, which means that a lot of RMI majors have accepted great job offers by December of their senior year, a good five months before graduation, and senior year is a lot more fun when you don't have to worry about finding a job afterward.
7. You're pretty much mathematically guaranteed to be in demand: The current makeup of the insurance industry workforce is very mature, meaning that 1 million insurance professionals, 43% of the workforce, are expected to retire in the next 10 years. In addition, the industry is growing and is expected to create 400,000 jobs. RMI majors are already pretty much immune to unemployment; they will be in increasingly high demand right around the time you graduate!
You pretty much can't go wrong by majoring in RMI! There are not a lot of RMI schools out there, so click on the map below to open an interactive map of RMI schools. Schools marked in red have a full RMI major while schools marked in green have an RMI minor or concentration.
