Underwriting. In Five Easy Lessons?

Abstract

Training a complete underwriter in five classroom lessons-even five long and difficult ones-seems impossible. Most of knowledge and judgment needed to underwrite risks profitably for just one line of insurance comes from years of experience, with academic learning being but a relatively minor supplement to an underwriter's total education. Nevertheless, most standard insurance texts treat underwriting in one chapter or less, a space which probably is commensurate with time devoted to underwriting in most insurance classrooms. The discussion of underwriting in these texts does not deserve more than one class period for instructor who has other important topics to cover. Consequently, it is difficult to do more than define underwriting as the selection of risks and of terms on which they are to be insured-or some such phrase-and give a few examples of this selection process. Apart from these basic texts, teacher has available a few quite old books on technical details of underwriting (principally fire underwriting), but nearly all of these have been outdated by improved construction techniques or by other changes in laws, customs, or business methods. Practicing underwriters are not prolific authors, and much of what they do write is restricted to internal insurance