Focus on Undergraduate Course in Risk Management and Insurance

Headlines from the salary-related articles at web site efinancialcareers.com read, “Lucrative Times for Risk Professionals,” (Apr. 9, 2007), “Demand Pumps Pay in Risk Management,” (Jan. 7, 2007), “Hefty Increases to Risk Executives,” (June 20, 2006), “Risk Sector View: Banks Gearing and Paying Up,” (Nov. 9, 2005), and “Risk Manager Pay Jumps 15% Year on Year,” (May 9, 2005). Michael Woodrow, president of the risk-management search firm Risk Talent Associates, predicts continued high demand for risk management specialists with experienced market risk and credit risk people getting packages of $500,000 or "much, much more."

The results from a recent Risk Talent Associates compensation survey are as follows. “For risk management analysts or associates, average total compensation in the U.S. grew from $111,000 in 2005 to $121,000 in 2006. For senior associates or managers, compensation rose $150,000 to $166,000. Vice presidents saw their compensation rise from $242,000 in 2005 to $264,000 in 2006. Senior vice presidents garnered $420,000 in 2005 versus $462,000 in 2006, while managing directors' compensation rose from $900,000 in 2005 to $984,000 in 2006. Finally, chief risk officers earned $928,000 in 2005, but broke $1 million in 2006,” according to the survey.

Outside of Wall Street and the financial sector, risk management salaries are not nearly so lofty, yet risk management can be a lucrative career option for today’s graduates in any part of the country. In June 207, Web site efinancialcareers.com listed 234 finance-based risk management jobs in cities ranging from Milwaukee to Houston to Boulder, CO. Risk managers are needed at hospitals, firms with trading floors, manufacturing firms, and insurance firms. While managing legal and financial liability for a hospital is different from managing risk with a portfolio of stocks and bonds, the same basic principles apply to each job. The risk manager has to characterize the probability of various possible outcomes and assign an expected cost or dollar value to each outcome.

Do you have the aptitude to pursue a career in risk management? For the cost of enrolling in a 3-semester hour on-line course, students can sample the work of a risk manager and decide if they like it. Charter Oak State College now offers the course “BUS 341: Risk Management and Insurance,” which can be used toward the upper level requirement in the Business Administration, Health Care Administration, Organizational Leadership, and Organizational Management concentrations. The course emphasizes quantitative techniques used to form judgments on risk exposure. Students work on calculating expected values and variance of payments for skewed distribution of outcomes (not the simple bell-shaped curves you may have seen in a business statistics course). Insurance pooling arrangements, techniques to limit exposure, and liability-driven approaches to asset management are analyzed. In just 8 weeks, you can have a broad introduction to risk management and learn if you want to pursue a career in this exciting field.