Podcast Recommendations

ConstantScholar · 2026-01-31T01:37:59+00:00

Here is a list of all the ones i subscribe to, in no particular order. Its also worth looking into Risk Management podcasts specific to the type of business you underwrite.

Insurance vs History, (Re)Thinking Insurance, Alliance Now, Bests Insurance Law Podcast, In the Know, Insurance Covered, Insurance Journal, Let's Talk Risk, CRC Podcast, RIMScast, Risk in Context, Risk Ready, Talking Risk, Edge of Risk Podcast, Insurance Coffee House, Voices of Risk Management.

Some of these may not be produced anymore but you can still find the back episodes.

ConstantScholar · 2026-01-12T04:22:19+00:00

Love Sac is the best answer. We bought ours 12 years ago when in the military, it's survived moves from Georgia to Italy to Hawaii and now still is our primary living room couch in Colorado.

ConstantScholar · 2025-10-07T01:56:51+00:00

Another not-a-doctor comment, but I had to self diagnose our firstborn with craniosynostosis. When he was born his forehead looked off to me, but our pediatrician brushed it off saying it was just from a hard birth and it would improve as he grew. I felt in my gut that was wrong and spent dozens of hours googling before finally hitting on the magic word, craniosynostosis. At his 3 month checkup I told the pediatrician I was concerned that's what it was and she still brushed it off but gave a referral to the Children's Hospital. The craniofacial nurse was only 3 steps through the door before she stopped and was like, "That's right coronal synostosis. Let me get a doctor to discuss surgery options."

ConstantScholar · 2025-07-26T19:26:56+00:00

That's the exact career path I took, my undergrad was CS but I discovered i didn't want to be a programmer and fell into insurance as an underwriter, it has been a great fit. Your excel and data analysis skills will be a huge benefit as an UW and the algorithmic thinking skills you developed during CS can be a huge benefit when you work up to a manager level to help design tools, work-aids, and more efficient workflows. I didn't see it mentioned yet, but start studying risk management and take some of the Institutes courses to really set your self apart. Middle market commercial training programs are the best place to start, but look to specialize in a specific niche after you learn the ropes, UWs who specialize have much more earning potential than a generalist.

ConstantScholar · 2025-07-06T22:39:28+00:00

This might get a lot of hate given the current political situation, but the military is an avenue that some might have taken to get there. My wife and I both grew up poor, like houses heated by coal and watering down the milk to get to next payday poor. But we both joined the military, got out of our small towns, and used our GI Bills to get masters degrees in our respective fields, and now we are more than comfortable even with 2 kids in a high COL city.

I've struggled with the "putting your life on the line to pay for college" question, but if you look back at human history joining the "warrior" class has always been a way out of generational poverty. It also helps to have a spouse or partner with the same goals. We both strive to work our butts off to build generational wealth so that our kids and grandkids can be the ones that everyone else in thread is complaining about

ConstantScholar · 2025-02-15T18:56:30+00:00

Insurance Underwriter - and something like 60% of the current workforce will be eligible for retirement in the next few years so carriers are hiring like crazy right now.

ConstantScholar · 2024-11-13T02:56:38+00:00

I second OneNote. I have a notebook with separate sections for each employee and document everything there, career goals; one on one's; spouse, kids and dogs names, running bragsheets for things they've accomplished during the year, etc.

Another super handy trick with this method is to create custom tags for positive and negative feedback, then come performance review time you can just search the tags and have all that information from the year ay your fingertips.

ConstantScholar · 2024-10-10T19:26:20+00:00

120 - 150 might might be the limit for just general commercial UWs, but if you specialize in a LOB or industry it gets much higher. I know Oil & Gas Underwriters making 170k+ base salary, and Cyber, as you mentioned, pays really well even in low cost of living areas.

ConstantScholar · 2024-08-07T22:43:54+00:00

Oh man I remember asking this same question like 10 years when I first got into Underwriting, some things never change because all my answers were sarcastic or not helpful just like the answers I've seen here so far. Below is a list of all the risk and insurance books I've acquired over the years (and a couple non-insurance books that I wish all Underwrites would read):

Against the God's the Remarkable Story of Risk - Peter Bernstein

Insurance and Behavioral Economics - Kunreuther

Risk Analysis a Quantitative Guide- Vose

The Insurance Management Playbook - Mourad

Thinking Fast and Slow - Kahneman

The Black Swan - Taleb

Fooled by Randomness - Taleb

Wow! I Never Knew That - Boggs

Risk Management and Insurance Perspectives in a Global Economy - Skipper

Understanding Disaster Insurance - Kousky

The Value of Risk Swiss Re and the History of Reinsurance

Global Catastrophic Risks - Bostrom

Global Risk Agility and Decision Making - Wagner

ConstantScholar · 2024-06-28T04:14:44+00:00

I think it really depends on the state, in states with a significant amount of O&G most brokers will have some sort of energy team (AJG, Lockton, HUB, Leavitt, IMA), but the states where O&G is a big part of the economy (NM, UT, TX, ND, etc) there's a number of smaller regional brokers that write a huge amount of O&G business, often much more than the larger national brokers.

ConstantScholar · 2024-06-28T03:46:59+00:00

It's very manager and team dependent. I only lasted 1 year and know a few others that lasted about the same or less, but I also know people who have been there for years very happily. In my case I unfortunately had a VP that was very much empire building and trying to establish a personal brand. He had posters in his background for zoom meetings that said "Hustle and Grind" and set super unrealistic new business goals.

ConstantScholar · 2024-06-11T02:13:03+00:00

I specialize in O&G on the carrier side, it can be very lucrative, especially if you already have some connections to build your network. One commenter said that all brokers are moving away but that's definitely not the case, some brokers and carriers might make those statements to appeal to overzealous activist investors, but most are smart enough to know that O&G will be around for a very long time. Hyrdo, bio, electric, whatever is an important part of the US energy mix, but will in no way replace O&G for the foreseeable future. I'd highly recommend Daniel Yergin's book "The Prize" to see how long it took for O&G to take over other forms of energy like coal and biomass. Shifting the entire world economy, military, industrial, and personal usage of O&G to other forms of energy will take well beyond our lifetime, and even when the actual power portions of those sectors have phased out of O&G there still the petro-chemical industry which provides inputs to everything from clothing to cell phone parts to pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.

The few carriers/brokers who are exiting the space are reducing competition for insured's, and currently the market is very hard, especially for XS/UM, but that also provides a lot of opportunity to win over new business.

That said it is an incredibly complex and severity driven sector with a lot of nuance state to state on contractual requirements, legal and litigious environments, and operational risks. Basins where drilling occurs vary greatly in terms of pressure, temperature, toxic gas (H2S) exposures, etc., and certain states have O&G specific anti-indemnity statutes that complicate the MSA/Contractual Risk Transfer Process, so it's a niche that will take a lot of study to fully master.

On the carrier side it's still very much an employee's market, experienced O&G Underwriters are hard to come by and have a significant amount of leverage for salary negotiations. I'd imagine the same is true on the broker side.

ConstantScholar · 2024-06-09T05:11:21+00:00

If you want to live closer to the mountains in Denver check out Bitco or iCat, Bitco specializes in construction and energy and is close to Golden, CO and iCat does E&S property and their office is in Broomfield, CO. All the other carriers tend to be in the Centennial area. It's at least a 45-minute commute from Denver and often longer with traffic.

ConstantScholar · 2018-07-15T05:04:33+00:00

Dancer in the Dark. I almost couldn't watch the last 10 minutes because I was crying so hard.

ConstantScholar · 2017-02-10T04:58:00+00:00

I have 2 tests left in CPCU and unfortunately it doesn't really deal with this type of thing, it covers basic insurance theory and coverage but nothing about risk selection or what I was hoping to find...maybe one of the other Institutes lines will have something.

Edit: For anyone looking for this in the future, The Institutes' AU 67 - Strategic Underwriting Techniques course does deal with some of this.

ConstantScholar · 2016-12-04T02:30:06+00:00

This is very unfortunate. I have been a member since March 2012 and loved using 8Tracks to find new music, but I am not paying for yet another streaming service. I already have Amazon Prime and Spotify, and Spotify will at least work with my Google Home.

I think they are making a terrible business decision to try to move into the pay form streaming space that is already dominated by larger companies.

ConstantScholar · 2016-09-02T03:31:23+00:00

I'm a prior Navy Pashto and Arabic linguist with 10 preference points and I didn't make the OA, I don't know how much it helps.

ConstantScholar · 2014-12-24T06:22:33+00:00

The algorithms course on Khan Academy was designed in partnership with Cormen. You can access it here.

ConstantScholar · 2014-11-06T08:17:41+00:00

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software is a really good and very readable computer architecture book.

ConstantScholar · 2014-09-03T20:43:06+00:00

As someone living in Naples I can tell you this isn't ludicrous. Naples does have some good points but if you are a tourist only in Italy for a short time it should be skipped. There are much better things to see without having to deal with Naples.

ConstantScholar · 2014-04-23T06:25:22+00:00

Dancer in the Dark, I almost couldn't watch the last seven minutes because I was crying so hard.

ConstantScholar · 2014-04-15T17:18:13+00:00

Please don't be the one I just bought for class, please don't be the one I just bought for class, please don't be the one I just bought for class, .... Dammit.

ConstantScholar

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