The Moore School’s risk management and insurance program was recently named the fourth largest risk management and insurance school in the U.S. by Business Insurance.
Named the fifth largest in 2019, the Moore School’s program has doubled in size since 2015.
Dating back to the 1970s, the risk management and insurance major being named the fourth largest “means the program’s success has been universally recognized by employers, students, faculty, as well as the Moore School’s and university’s administration,” said Robert Hartwig, director for the Moore School’s Risk and Uncertainty Management Center and a clinical associate professor.
The program has earned the Global Center for Insurance Excellence designation; this means the Moore School is only one of 19 institutions with this designation worldwide.
“The Moore School’s risk management and insurance program is competitive because we have top-notch faculty and high-caliber students,” Hartwig said. “As the program has expanded, employers who have hired our grads over the years have been very pleased and return to hire additional students, provide internships and even scholarships.”
Students with the risk management and insurance major gain skills in the program that help them identify, understand, quantify and assess risk. Beyond insurance, program alumni have gone on to careers in fields such as banking, consulting, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, and government.
Some students also combine their skills from the program with finance, operations and supply chain, or data analytics, Hartwig added.
“It is important to recognize that the designation of the fourth largest risk management and insurance program in the country reflects the quality of our faculty and the success of our graduates from this program,” said Donghang Zhang, chair of the department that includes finance, real estate, risk management and insurance and finance professor. “Most students in the risk management and insurance program have a double major in finance or another area in the Moore School. The strength of the risk management and insurance program helps, and at the same time benefits, from the strength and growth in quality of the department and the Moore School. The designation as being one of the largest programs in the country strengthens this positive feedback loop.”
Because of its recent growth, the program has been granted permission to recruit for a new tenure-track faculty member, who will hopefully begin in fall 2021.
Students majoring in risk management and insurance work closely with the Risk and Uncertainty Management Center, which supports a variety of risk management and insurance research, education and career initiatives. In addition to sponsoring speakers for a seminar series, the center sponsors students who travel to participate in conferences; these networking opportunities frequently lead to career and internship opportunities.
The center also supports faculty research initiatives and helps fund research assistants.
“The COVID-19 pandemic made it clear that the most successful organizations are those that best manage risk,” Hartwig said. “USC’s risk management and insurance program is positioned to help organizations around the world find the talent they need to succeed in a very uncertain world.”