Seasoned risk managers who began their careers in the insurance brokerage or underwriting business gained a knowledge of the industry that later helped advance their careers.

And for risk managers that began in an insurance company's claims department, the experience built a strong foundation that handily carried over to risk management.

“For traditional risk managers, getting a good grounding in the claims business was very helpful,” said Christopher E. Mandel, executive vice president of professional services for RPM3 Solutions L.L.C. in Nashville, Tenn. “It was a great start.”

From 2001 to 2010, Mr. Mandel was head of enterprise risk management for USAA Group and he was named Business Insurance's Risk Manager of the Year® for 2004.

But before all that, Mr. Mandel started his insurance career in 1978 as a claims adjuster at Liberty Mutual Group Inc.

“If you end up, as I did, in large corporates, you almost always had significant claim volumes,” Mr. Mandel said, noting that most of the companies he worked for retained a significant amount of risk.

“That just meant that either I was going to have to spend a lot of resources overseeing claim activity or even potentially, as I did in several cases, bring certain amount of claim management activity in-house that I would be directly overseeing — and that's the way it turned out,” he said. “So that claim background was very helpful.”

Mark DeLillo, director of risk management at home building company Taylor Morrison Inc. in Scottsdale, Ariz., began his insurance career in the claims department of Travelers Insurance Co. in the mid-1970s.

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“That gave me a basic foundation that has carried me for the next 30-some years,” he said. “The claims function allows you to see many aspects of the insurance transaction, the loss scenario, after everyone has looked at it.”

Once a loss occurs, the claims adjuster examines the insurance policy, underwriting and loss prevention, and determines the outcome of the loss, Mr. DeLillo said.

“It's a much broader view than just the underwriter sitting in an office or the loss control guy just going out to the site,” he said. “I think it gave me a phenomenal foundation to move into risk management.”

Working on the underwriting side of the insurance transaction prepares a future risk manager for the challenges he or she will be dealing with, said Lance J. Ewing, industry practice group leader, hospitality and leisure, at Chartis Inc. in Cordova, Tenn.

“Having that carrier/underwriting/claims background sort of pulls the curtain back a little bit before you go to the risk management side to see what underwriters are truly looking for, what is helpful for you as you prepare for the renewal period of time,” Mr. Ewing said.

Prior to Chartis, Mr. Ewing was vice president of risk management for Harrah's Entertainment Inc. until 2010. He began his insurance career as an intern at Erie Insurance Co. in 1983 and later worked at other insurance companies in field underwriting, claims and highly protected risk engineering roles. Mr. Ewing was named Business Insurance's 2007 Risk Manager of the Year®.

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While the transition between insurance industry roles may be smooth for some, moving from a risk manager to a broker may be a bit more challenging, industry experts say.

The key challenge is transitioning from a buyer to a seller, because many risk managers generally are not sales-oriented people, Mr. Mandel said.

Mr. DeLillo, who worked as a risk consultant and producer at Hobbs Group, which became Hilb Rogal & Hobbs Co. in 2002, said the move from in-house risk manager to a producer “is a very difficult transition.”

“It wasn't fun. You never got to see the full fruits of the efforts that you put into a specific account or prospect or project,” Mr. DeLillo said. “As a risk manager, you develop a risk management strategy, you implement it and you live with it. You get to see the fruits of that or the downsides, and you adjust accordingly.”

Stacy Stevens, senior vice president at Beecher Carlson Holdings Inc. in Los Angeles, said risk managers already sell their programs to key stakeholders within the company, which in essence gives them a plethora of “clients.”

“You're also selling your company to underwriters at each and every renewal,” she said. “As a risk manager, you have to differentiate your account from the account that's sitting perhaps just above yours or below yours in that underwriter's pile of things to do at any given renewal period.”

Ms. Stevens, former senior vice president for Loews Entertainment Inc., where she focused on insurance placement and loss control for the organization's hotels, resorts and commercial locations until May of this year, said that as a broker the emphasis is less on sales and more on consulting.

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Going from a risk manager to a risk management specialist at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. was a smooth transition for Dorothy M. Gjerdrum, who is now executive director of the public entity and scholastic division for Arthur J. Gallagher Risk Management Services Inc. in St. Paul, Minn.

Ms. Gjerdrum was a risk manager of pooled county governments in New Mexico from 1989 to 1999. “That was very broad and wide open and gave me a lot of room for creativity for trying to solve problems, figure out how to manage risk for our members in a better way,” she said.

“For me, I just don't want to keep doing the same thing over and over. Risk management is a very creative field, giving you a chance to try lots of different approaches or combine some intuition with data with understanding what works in other places,” Ms. Gjerdrum said. “It's just a really creative process, managing risk.”

This story is from the October 15, 2012, issue of the weekly print edition of Business Insurance, a special issue featuring how insurers, brokers and corporations are developing and attracting talent.

Copies of this issue, which includes a data poster featuring information on recruiting risk management talent, are available for $100 by contacting our Single Copy Sales department at 888-446-1422.

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