What’s the Risk: College of Business Offers Opportunity for Students

The Risk Management & Insurance concentration offered through the College of Business at Southern University may be only six and a half years old, but it offers potential graduates a lifetime full of opportunities.
The Louisiana Department of Insurance recently donated $460,000 to the College of Business. With the Risk Management & Insurance program benefitting from the increased scholarships and enrichment opportunities it can now serve a larger portion of the student body. The University of Louisiana in Lafayette (ULL) and the University of Louisiana in Monroe (ULM) are the only two other colleges offering risk management and insurance programs in the state of Louisiana. In terms of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), Howard University is the most notable institution other than Southern that offers the program.
College of Business Dean, Donald Andrews, could not help but to express gratitude towards Assistant Commissioner for Diversity & Opportunity, Patrick Bell, and his team for their “understanding and initiative to move this program forward.”
“My vision is to have [Southern’s] program so successful, companies would be in a bidding war. ‘Oh no, I saw him first, no I’m first.’ You know…just to try to get [students] to work for them,” Bell commented.
Students unsure of a career path could look to the insurance industry. Bell referenced a 2013 article from insurance-based news platform, Property Casualty 360, which stated that 400,000 positions would need to be filled by the year 2020, due to older generations retiring from the industry.
That same article referenced that more than 40 percent of the future job market is not interested in pursuing insurance as an occupation. A lack of internships and publicity were cited as possible causes for why young adults are not interested.
Bell and Andrews agreed that any student can benefit from a career in insurance. The insurance business is ‘recession-proof’. It is also flexible to majors outside of business. “Everything we buy has some element of insurance tied to it,” Bell added.
Becoming a claims adjuster can also benefit local communities, limiting places of worship, residence, or business from being improperly insured due to an agent from a contrasting background handling the case.
Andrews believes that students should not allow race to play a factor in choosing insurance as a career.
“If you have talent, then you can go anywhere. If you don’t have talent, whether you red, green, black, blue, or whatever, you still have a problem, because you can’t do much if you don’t know much. The more you know, the more you can do,”
Bell added that today’s society demands companies to have diversity amongst staff members.
Currently, the Risk Management & Insurance program serves as a concentration within a degree in Finance. The goal is to develop the program into becoming a minor, and potentially a major offered at the College of Business.
There are no prerequisites for non-business students interested in taking courses related to the concentration.
Guest speakers and presenters will also be making appearances on campus throughout the school year to help students interested in learning more information about insurance. More information on these programs could be found through accessing the College of Business’s official Facebook page at SUBRCOB or their official Twitter account; @COB_SUBR.
With the rise of a new program on the horizon, things are looking up in T.T. Allain Hall.