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Valerie Beatrice
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Valerie worked in Harleysville Insurance, which is a property casualty insurance carrier with roughly 2,000 employees. She was not formally assigned a mentor, but she sat near two paralegals that were very approachable and guided her though much of the work. She was hired in the legal department, where she filed and made copies. She also assisted in some minor projects, helping lawyers gather information to submit to various state insurance departments for regulation purposes. She then was asked to assist in premium audits, where she worked closely with premium audit specialists to process mail-statement audits. The people she worked with were genuinely friendly and approachable. When she mentioned to the Senior VP of Commercial Lines that she was interested in underwriting and would like to ask him a few questions, he was so enthusiastic that he forwarded her request to a number of co workers, and arranged for a number of meetings and orientations of various departments in the company. This provided her with great networking opportunities and the chance to learn about many other careers within the industry. She was also able to observe some other individuals in the field, like when she accompanied the Loss Control representative to inspect prospective pieces of business. She also traveled with field underwriters to meet with independent agents. All of these “field trips” greatly enhanced her learning experience at the company.
The RMI classes helped Valerie understand the functions of underwriters, agents, brokers, etc. It was also helpful to know information about different policies and coverages, specifically BOPs. She also wound up discussing expense ratios and loss ratios. A special project she was in charge of was implementing the company’s imaging system for the law department’s corporate minute books. This involved coordinating efforts between the IT and law departments to ensure that all documents were scanned, organized, and labeled correctly. Some benefits of her internship included a few lunches and a happy hour. She really liked the laid back environment at Harleysville Insurance and she was grateful that nearly everyone she met was friendly and approachable, so she was able to ask many questions and learn a lot. She would have enjoyed some more challenging work, and although she learned a lot of information she would have liked to learn more skills. She also would have liked more interactions with other inters, since they were never formally introduced and only saw each when they crossed paths in the hallway. Overall, she enjoyed her experience and learned a great deal about how an insurance company operates, so she would recommend Harleysville Insurance to other students.