Eight (8) exams, countless hours of study, and thousands of dollars stand in your way of achieving the Chartered Property & Casualty Underwriter (#CPCU) designation. It’s a tall mountain to climb and only a small minority of the professionals in the Risk Management & Insurance (RMI) industry reach the summit. So why is it that some within the industry still cling to this idea that CPCU’s are simply overeducated, average achievers? Why is it that many among us feel the designation is a waste of time and money that results in little else than some additional letters we throw on our resume, LinkedIn profile, and business card? The simple answer? Ignorance, envy, and compensating for personal inadequacies.
Strong words, I know. But what’s ironic is the folks we have allowed to push this narrative may have only worked with one or two CPCU’s in their career. Or they have never been involved in a professional association like the CPCU Society that helps its’ members achieve what few others ever have. It’s also a common rally cry from my broker brethren that think wasting time on a designation is overcompensating for not being able to hang with them when it comes to drive, ambition, and execution. So let’s explore the ways in which CPCU’s can and will eat your lunch and then you be the judge.
It only makes getting an interview easier!
Building your resume is indeed an important part of catching the eye of a hiring manager that must sift through dozens of resumes to determine the shortlist of interviewees. The CPCU certainly checks that box. But here is what gets missed. The letters help you get the interview but “The Truth Shall Set You Free”. Shrewd hiring managers will flesh out the candidates that only collect credentials and other resume building blocks to this end. The CPCU isn’t the achievement, it’s your ticket to dance! Put yourself in the place of a hiring manager with the following 3 candidates:
#1 – College Degree, 5 years of experience
#2 – College Degree, 5 years of experience, CPCU and perhaps another designation
#3 – College Degree, 5 years of experience, CPCU, a couple other designations, 3 published articles, 2 speaking appearances at the CPCU Annual Meeting, Local chapter leader who has been coordinating professional development and activities for dozens of other highly credentialed professionals, and a network of some of the best people in the business at their disposal
WHO ARE YOU HIRING?
Obviously more goes into a hiring decision than this. Culture, demeanor, and drive are other big contributors. I assure you Candidate #3 will have been helped in these areas as well.
- Culture – has spent time learning about diversity, inclusion, supplementing human skills with technology, emerging risks, and products, etc.
- Demeanor – countless hours networking, collaborating, and building professional relationships with the best of the best
- Drive – I think you know the answer to this when comparing #2 and #3!
A word to all of you #2’s out there – get off your butt and get involved. You spent all of that time and energy and you’re wasting the greatest opportunity of your professional career! Don’t be a #2 when you’ve been given a ticket to go so much further.
Why get the CPCU when most of our jobs will be taken over by AI ChatBots in the Future?
There is such defeatism in certain segments of our industry. Many folks find themselves acting like a farm animal just whittling away the time before they head off to the abattoir (slaughterhouse). But remember this…technology can’t replace insurance professionals if the folks building the technology don’t understand the actually freakin’ business of insurance! The low hanging fruit of automation is menial, repetitive tasks. Will the manual rating of insurance policies go away? YES and in most cases it already has. Change is constant.
But what will always remain in our industry will be a need for educated, adaptive, and innovative insurance professionals. Drive and passion are always important but I assure you that chatbots can overcome an ignorant underwriter or broker whose only selling point is their limitless drive and ambition. Can you work 24 hours a day and process basic service requests in 4 milliseconds? No? Then you might want to think about upping your game. Read up on what the prediction is for AI in the stock trading industry.
Fancy credentials are no replacement for on-the-job experience
True. If I had to make the choice in isolation, I’d take an experienced professional over a highly credentialled young-in in most cases. However, the difference is how quickly the young-in with the CPCU can make up the stagger over time! The CPCU provides a diverse, baseline foundation off of which an insurance professional can begin to grow their knowledge and experience. The credential gives you access to the best and brightest from around the world that aren’t happy to just sit in their cubicle and learn from or collaborate with the 10-20 people that just so happen to be geographically located next to them. The speed of development of a CPCU is higher than that of the average insurance professional who thinks just doing their job every day is a replacement for the drive and ambition it takes to get into the cool kids club! This is most of the reason CPCU’s earn considerably more per year on average than their non-CPCU counterparts.
Now I’m not saying throw away the tenured, non-CPCU professionals. But what I am saying is maybe you should be doubling down on your commitment to get as many of your colleagues/teammates into the club! It’ll benefit all of you.
Brokers don’t need the CPCU, they need to produce!
Granted the time commitment to get the designation is significant. And the value proposition is difficult because that’s time spent away from building the next relationship or selling the next piece of business. But think long term! Insurance products are becoming more sophisticated; as are the risks they insure. The turn-and-burn type of accounts many of your young producers are chasing are probably going to get gobbled up by the Insurtech’s dedicated to cutting the producer out of the small commercial distribution model. The same can be said about less complicated personal insurance transactions. So where does that leave us? We’ll need to focus more on sophisticated risks that require a high level of relationship-building as well as a high level of knowledge. Throw in there that building a personal brand as a thought leader in the insurance world can be a huge deal when it comes time to approach decision-makers at these accounts.
Lastly, a personal message. I’m in my late 30’s and compete against 50 and 60-year-old brokers all the time. And I win! They tout their years of experience, the size of their book of business, and their “connections”. Then I look at the policies they’ve placed and there’s coverage gaps, missing endorsements, and creative solutions that have never been discussed with the client. My closing ratio is also much higher than my non-CPCU competitors. How can this be? I can’t produce or underwrite! Well, keep parroting that phrase as long as it takes for me to come across one of your clients. Perhaps they’ll laugh right along with you and elbow you in the side as they shew me away. Or perhaps the Broker of Record (BOR) letter you receive will make you think twice about all those years you thought all those nerds are just wasting their time to collect 4 letters after their name!
About Matthew Struck
(Pronouns: he/him/his) Treadstone Risk Management LLC was founded by two experienced insurance professionals who share a vision of providing the highest level of service and professional expertise to public and private sector Property & Casualty insurance clientele. Treadstone has identified a need in the insurance brokerage and risk management industry for an agency whose personnel possess the highest level of industry education, training and experience. We pride ourselves on our ability to deploy those skills collectively through premier customer service and attention.
(Pronouns: he/him/his)
Treadstone Risk Management LLC was founded by two experienced insurance professionals who share a vision of providing the highest level of service and professional expertise to public and private sector Property & Casualty insurance clientele. Treadstone has identified a need in the insurance brokerage and risk management industry for an agency whose personnel possess the highest level of industry education, training and experience. We pride ourselves on our ability to deploy those skills collectively through premier customer service and attention.
