Newsletters
Risk Central
Digital EditionThe Buckeye State’s Insurance Talent Recruitment Approach
Those who are looking for ways to bring more talent into the insurance industry (and who among us isn’t?) might want to cast their gaze to the state of Ohio.
It’s there that a combination of solid support from insurance companies, passionate and creative leadership at the university level and forward-thinking contributions from other stakeholders is producing eye-opening results.
“I would say we are the envy of greater Cincinnati when it comes to our internship program,” said Brian Wood, head of human resources for Cincinnati Insurance, a company that welcomes anywhere between 90 and 120 interns into its summer programs annually.
But it wasn’t always that way. It took years for the company, through trial and error, to gain an understanding about how to bring young people through the door, give them meaningful work, and create a learning environment that would show them the beauty and potential of a career in insurance.
“If we go back 8 to 10 years, our program was not nearly as healthy as it is today,” said Wood. “So we took a step back and we charged all of the departments that were going to have interns to give us an advanced overview. In essence, asking them ‘What is your intern going to be doing?’ ”
The result of that is that Wood and other executives at Cincinnati Insurance were able to divert impressionable interns from doing menial, boring tasks. Instead, they introduced them to work that is closer to the engaging work done by professionals in the field.
“They get to do real work, coding and underwriting being two examples — the kinds of things they will do upon graduation,” Wood said.
Based about a half-hour away, Ann Hofmann, PhD, Great American Insurance Group Endowed Chair and the academic director of the Lindner Center for Insurance and Risk Management at the University of Cincinnati, tells a story with a parallel plotline.
Brian Wood
Head of Human Resources
Cincinnati Insurance
The risk management program at the university was founded in 2010 and could count three students in the major at that point. It now counts 130 majors.
“So yes, we have been growing quite significantly, and my plan would be to really not stop there, but to make it one of the biggest majors in the business school,” she said. “I view the Cincinnati Tri-State area as the Midwestern hub for insurance.”
She counts Great American, Cincinnati Insurance, benefits brokerage McGohan Brabender and the Western and Southern Life Insurance Company as key state-based supporters of the risk management program at the university.
Recently, Hofmann led a 17-strong contingent of students across the Atlantic to visit business education and insurance centers in Hamburg, Germany, and London. A visit to Lloyd’s of London, in particular, left a strong impression on the students.
“Some of the students were already in my program, so they were already sold on the industry,” Hofmann said.
But when others took in the history of Lloyd’s, how it began in a coffee shop in the 1600s and now is a conduit for risk transfer capital from around the globe, some light bulbs started to go on. Students viewed the policy that covered the Titanic and heard true stories about insuring soccer icon Cristiano Ronaldo’s legs, among other celebrity coverages.
“You had to see their faces when they walked in and took in the history of the building,” Hofmann said.
Since their return, through word of mouth, the students who went on the Hamburg and London trip have been doing their own kind of marketing, telling other students about the experience they had there.
Hofmann said she is making plans to shepherd risk management students on cross-Atlantic insurance education trips every other year, so the next one will be in 2026. Munich and London are on that tentative itinerary.
One of the students on the 2024 trip was Ohio’s own Ethan Catlin. He started out as a finance major at the University of Cincinnati, but as a result of his internship experience with The Cincinnati Insurance Company, he added the major of insurance.
“The trip to Lloyd’s of London (where Cincinnati Global, an affiliate of Cincinnati Insurance, has an underwriting desk) was a beautiful experience and I couldn’t have asked for anything better,” Catlin said.
“I didn’t even know Cincinnati Global would be on the agenda until I saw the itinerary,” he said. “Seeing Cincinnati Insurance’s name right there was insane, especially because I work there,” he said.
“The atmosphere at Lloyd’s was striking,” Catlin added. “I could sense the intensity just by observing the interactions between the brokers and underwriters.”
Jody Foltyn, vice president,
education and workforce development, Ohio Insurance Institute
“We have a very strong, thriving domestic insurance market in Ohio,” said Jody Foltyn, a vice president of education and workforce development with the Ohio Insurance Institute, who took that role in October of 2023.
“The University of Cincinnati’s trip to Lloyd’s of London is a great example of how the insurance industry can present itself in a fresh, exciting light,” she said.
The OII has been working with insurance companies for more than a decade now on ways to strengthen university risk management programs and help them gain momentum. Ohio is home to approximately 10 risk management and insurance higher education programs, which include Bowling Green State University, the University of Cincinnati, Ohio Dominican University and the University of Akron.
“One of the first things I did when I started was to travel around and visit the state’s college-level risk management programs to see how they were doing,” Foltyn said.
“What I found was, by and large, that they have really strong business connections from an internship perspective,” she said.
Cincinnati Insurance’s Wood said that one of the things that really propelled his company’s internship program forward was the way it handled the program during the COVID pandemic.
“When the pandemic hit, all of these companies just pulled the plug on their internship programs,” Wood said.
“We were already set up for our entire workforce to work remotely. Then more than ever, the interns needed that. The goodwill we earned at the university level by keeping all of our interns was a watershed moment for us,” he said.
“We had almost 2,000 applicants for 50 IT internships this past summer.”
The University of Cincinnati’s Hofmann projects a lot of positive energy when talking about the promise of the insurance industry and the potential of companies and universities to add new talent.
“If you look at the insurance industry, 60% of it is over 60,” she said.
“This is a great opportunity for young people to start a career even if they don’t want to stay in insurance,” she said.
“The talent gap is significant and they can start out with great starting salaries. What we’re talking about is not only insurance; it’s risk management, loss prevention, catastrophic risk management, global pandemics etc., and how the insurance industry and the risk management profession can really help with that.
“If you look at the reinsurance industry, I’d say that’s much more attractive than working on Wall Street,” she added.
“Growing up and even early in my college career, I had a somewhat negative perception of the insurance industry. However, my perspective changed when I started my internship at Cincinnati Insurance,” said its intern, Ethan Catlin. “It was evident that everyone at Cincinnati Insurance genuinely cared about helping policyholders, and I truly believe in that mission. That was one of the main reasons I wanted to pursue a career in the insurance industry.” &
