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insurance underwriters decide whether to provide insurance to individuals families and organizations in this video we're going to help you answer the question should you become an insurance underwriter in 2020 we're going to go over the latest salaries job market statistics and the latest trends coming up [Music] hey everyone stephen hack here with crew watch where we help you with your career search gonna be enjoying the video hit that thumbs up to support the channel all the charts and graphs used in this video are available at my blog at www.careerwatch.comblogslash insurance underwriter insurance underwriters have a number of roles and responsibilities they analyze insurance applications they determine different risks associated with these applications they screen applicants they utilize underwriting software and they gather information from different sources in order to propose coverage amounts premiums and help set up insurance contracts insurance underwriters are the middlemen between insurance companies and insurance agents often they choose to specialize in either life health or property insurance so what is the average salary of an insurance underwriter this data is from the bureau of labor statistics that doesn't include overtime and other benefits they've been surveying the incomes of insurance underwriters for a little over two decades in 1999 the average base salary for an insurance underwriter was forty four thousand nine hundred and forty dollars this rose to seventy seven thousand six hundred and forty dollars in 2019 so over these two decades there was a wage growth of around thirty three thousand dollars this comes out to an average yearly wage growth of around sixteen hundred dollars per year using this average yearly wage growth we can predict that in 2020 the average base salary would be around 79 000 and then by 2029 the average base salary would rise to around 94 000 per year insurance underwriters are paid very differently depending on experience level and geography a starting salary for an insurance underwriter would probably be around 42 000 per year this is the 10th percentile using the 2019 numbers and the top 10 percent of insurance underwriters earn more than 124 000 per year these are people that have a lot of experience and probably live in a pretty hot job market so in fact there is an 82 000 difference between this 10th the starting salary and someone that's really late into their career and gets to the top 10 of earners geography also plays a huge role in the compensation of insurance underwriters in this map the darker blue states are the highest paying states for insurance underwriters and the lighter blue states are the lower paying the beige ones actually have no data associated with them at all the lowest paying state on average is the state of south carolina where the average base salary is around 56 000 per year and the highest paying state the state of new york on average pays insurance under writers around 99 000 per year and cost living definitely assists with this obviously south carolina is a lot cheaper to live in than the state of new york other high-paying states for insurance underwriters include washington d.c the state of connecticut massachusetts new jersey and nevada so how do insurance underwriters do compared to similar occupations they do okay their base salaries are higher than insurance sales agents but keep in mind with insurance sales agents some of them don't even get a base salary some of them are 100 commission and that is definitely a go big or go home kind of occupation they earn a little bit more than cost estimators and they earn a little bit more than loan officers insurance underwriters are out earned by budget analysts and they are out earned by actuaries but i think the big one to compare would be insurance sales agents we'll compare them a little bit more later in the video so what is the job market like for insurance underwriters is this a growing occupation in 1989 the bureau of labor statistics recorded around 94 000 employed insurance underwriters this was pretty stagnant up until 2009 starting in 2009 the number of jobs started to drop this reached a low point in 2017 at around 90 000 jobs then from 2017 to 2019 there was a growth of about 10 000 jobs reaching about a hundred thousand jobs in 2019. so over the past two decades there really hasn't been a lot of job growth for insurance underwriters part of this might be due to the great recession that started in the late 2000s and lasted quite a few years the government is actually forecasting a six percent decline in the number of jobs for insurance underwriters over the next 10 years this is one of the very few occupations where the government is predicting job losses over the next 10 years and this is mainly due to ai and machine learning apparently underwriting software is getting better and better it is allowing underwriters right now to be more efficient and more productive as this software keeps getting better this could lead to more and more job losses for insurance underwriters but keep in mind the software isn't replacing all insurance underwriters it is making the ones right now more efficient and more productive so there should be some job losses but the entire occupation isn't like going away as far as where all the jobs are they're in giant metropolises they're in the state of new york state of texas california florida they're basically where all the people are the states with the greatest number of employed insurance underwriters include california new york illinois and texas to determine how competitive this occupation is i usually use indeed.com indeed is a job search engine it is extremely popular so what i did is i typed in underwriter and i searched all across the united states looking for how many job postings there are and then i can compare it to the number of employed so i found about 8 700 job postings compared against 100 000 employed this gives us a 1 to 11 ratio that's actually really not that bad i thought there would be more of an abundance of insurance underwriters but really at this point in time there's actually quite a few job opportunities for insurance underwriters in one of my other videos i did flight attendants and there's actually 11 job postings total across the united states when i did an indeed search a month or two ago so the coronavirus pandemic hasn't been impacting jobs for insurance underwriters pretty much at all another thing to keep in mind is this is a medium-sized occupation there are far more insurance underwriters than there are actuaries and there's about twice as many insurance underwriters as there are budget analysts but there is far more insurance sales agents and a lot of people will probably try and really figure out whether they'd be more interested in going into insurance sales or become an insurance underwriter also there's about three times as many loan officers as there are insurance underwriters so the next question would be is this occupation compatible with your interests and one way to determine this is to take a riosec assessment this is basically to figure out your interests and put them into six different categories and then compare your interests with people in different occupations with insurance underwriters they tend to score high in the conventional and the enterprising themes people that score high in the conventional theme tend to be really organized they tend to be conscientious orderly and a little bit more careful but people that score high in the enterprising theme they tend to be the leaders the uh business owners people that like to lead and persuade other people so insurance underwriters definitely have a pretty interesting set of interests typically and because they score pretty high in the enterprising theme do you know who else scores really high in the enterprising theme it would be insurance sales agents so there's quite a few people that probably have a hard time figuring out whether they want to become insurance sales agents or insurance underwriters as far as education needed for this occupation most people have a bachelor's degree some people in this occupation have just a high school diploma and some people just have an associate's degree but the vast majority of people have at least a bachelor's degree there's also a certification called the charter property and casualty underwriter certification this is extremely popular and a lot of people get this certification to kind of rise into more of a senior position so as you can see there is pros and cons becoming an insurance underwriter in 2020. job growth has been really sluggish over the past 20 years and the government is actually anticipating a six percent job loss over the next ten this could make getting a job more and more competitive as the job losses start because of underwriting software the software is getting better and better mostly because of narrow ai and machine learning algorithms it is allowing underwriters to be more and more productive and more efficient leading to less underwriters needed at different insurance companies wage growth for insurance underwriters has actually been pretty good they've seen a 34 000 increase in their wages from 1999 to 2019. another really great occupation for people to look at people that score really high in the enterprising theme would be insurance sales in those kind of sales positions they almost have an unlimited ability to earn as much money as they want but insurance underwriter would probably offer more of a steady paycheck than insurance sales are you an insurance underwriter let us know in the comments below let us know what your favorite thing is and what your least favorite thing is about this occupation thanks so much for watching and i will see you in the next video you