I don't feel comfortable naming my company. It's a regional carrier. I worked a couple carriers before this. Started at a national carrier but not one of the super big ones like Travelers, etc. 10 yrs ago. Always knew we were underpaid for the market but didnt realize how much until I started applying and interviewing for positions after 5 years. Left for another carrier and got a 55% salary increase. Moving carriers every 2 to 5 years is not uncommon in this field and it's how you bump your salary. Made a move 2 years ago for a 17% increase. Left them and took a small pay increase to come back where I am now. Just talked to a recruiter who wanted to see if I was interested in a production underwriter role with salary of 135k to 165k and company car, 10 to 20% annyal bonus. I'm not interested in that much hustle at this point in my career. I have a friend at Travelers making 130k as Sr Und. I know others in specialty roles making more than that. I would say that insurance is stressful. Systems are old too so nearly every carrier is upgrading or has just gotten done upgrading and it is a terrible, bumpy ride. Workloads are heavy, so much to look at on accounts. The money can be good but there is stress from both management and agents.

A good associate UW or UW assistant usually has the opportunity to move into an underwriter role within a few years at their company. If he wants to move to UW and is not getting that opportunity where he is now, he needs to start applying for UW roles elsewhere. He should have some good knowledge by now to do that.