Toxic and Thankless Work Environment
Pros
Entry level position that can give you underwriting basics.
Cons
I have repeteadly witnessed misogynistic behavior from male managers that borders on sexual harassment. I would not ever present this to HR due to a culture of retaliation and favoritism. It is career-suicide to speak up. This is particularly amusing because the company touts itself as being recognized as the "most ethical" any chance they get. Cringe. Bait & switch approach to things like hybrid or work from home arrangements. I have seen workers/departments told they had work from home and then had it taken away or had what started as a "flexible" arrangement turn into mandatory set days of attendance in office with no flexibility for inclement weather, childcare, etc. This company is very much about working in an office and not remotely. Churn & Burn model where new hires with energy are burnt to a crisp grinding out work with the promises of "increased visibility" while the handful of long-tenured folks do very little. Career development is a joke here. They do not reimburse for pursuit of things like CPCU or CLU - designations that are actually industry recognized and have value. They do offer pointless online modules and internally recognized "degrees" in certain subjects but this is not something one could actually place on a resume. The entire mid-term underwriting department was laid off pretty swiftly about 2-3 years ago. A small percentage got offered (worse) jobs but the majority, some with 10+ years of tenure, were simply shown the door. Aside from generating countless problems and agency complaints, this speaks to the larger issue of cyclical layoffs, or what they now call "level-setting." This is a stock company and shareholder profits dictate the course of the ship, any explanation to the contrary from management is hogwash. The loudest in the room is seen as the best. Substance is irrelevant and extroversion bias is ingrained at every level of management. More often than not it feels like being in middle school than at a fortune 500 company. Interview did not convey how sales-driven the job is. If you are a new business underwriter you will often be pushed to do the functions that your sales rep is paid [a lot more than you] to do. The agents you work with will lie constantly and often treat you with outright disrespect and contempt. They are not partners and the relationships are adversarial and fake. If you achieve your written premium goals, the marketing rep for your territory gets a nice bonus and you get a pat on the back. It only takes a few cycles of this to get burned out. The New Hartford office was shrunk down, so if you work in office you are on top of everyone else and have zero privacy. Needless to say, the toilet situation is not adequate either. Management will press for more “pipeline” business but I have not seen a single manager involve themselves in a meaningful way to move the needle on large accounts, ever. Pay is well below industry average, most underwriters put in about 3-5 years to get the experience and then leave to actually get paid what they are worth. Competitors routinely poach great talent from us and it's’ understandable why. Fake woke/diversity culture which in practice is nothing but lip-service. The actual decision makers at the highest levels of the company are mostly white and over 50. Increased bindability and automation is pitched as something to be excited about but it’s obvious that higher volume departments like small commercial will not require the same staffing in the near future due to these advancements . Management offers long-winded empty platitudes because if they spoke in plain English we would see how little they actually have to say.
