Hi, welcome to today's webinar, Navigating Shifting Generations in the Inland Marine Workplace to Maximize Results, hosted by Inland Marine Underwriters. I'm Eileen Monreale, Education Training Specialist at IMUA, and I thank you all for joining us today. A few technical tips before we begin. You will find your attendee control panel on your screen. It may minimize by default. At any point, you can right-click on the orange arrow to bring it back. Also, you can select View on the control panel and uncheck the auto-hide option, so it will not disappear on you anymore. In that control panel, you will see a question box, and we plan time at the end of this session for questions. Everyone looks forward to your questions. That's always a highly anticipated part of the presentation. So before we begin, I want to thank my colleagues, Lillian Colson and Eileen Monreale, for their work to ensure the success of today's webinar, and a shout out to Emily Willis for suggesting and helping to build out the topic, and for volunteering to participate today. We were fortunate to land today's outstanding moderator, who I am honored to introduce now, Gabby McCain. Gabby is a senior underwriter at Everest Insurance. She is a proud nerd of all things trade, with experience in international shipping and compliance before joining Everest. At Everest, Gab has held roles in both claims and underwriting. In her spare time, she enjoys mountain biking, skiing, food, family, and good puns. Mountain biking and puns, you say, Gabby? Yes. I wish there was something to go together where I could make a point. Oh, I found it. I found it. I found it. Unprepared. Go ahead. Here we go. I am prepared. So here you go, Gab. Why couldn't the bicycle stand up? I don't know. Why? It was too tired. Love it. Get it. Okay. On that note, please welcome Gabby McCain. Thank you very much for the intro, Eileen, and thanks to the IMUA for putting this together and to all of our colleagues for making it happen. Good crowd today. So very excited to just be chatting in one place with everyone. I am going to just briefly go over, whoops, that's me. I'm going to briefly go over just some discussion points. We really want this to be a fluid chat, just to sort of provoke thought, sort of what takeaways can we get from here to sort of bring into our own context when we go our separate ways at the end here. So discussion points are going to contain shifts in ways of working. So it obviously goes without saying that the pandemic has drastically changed how we work. Hybrid work is here to stay, but we also see a lot of corporate-focused commentary on social media and even in our own company's communications that there will always be a need for in-person collaboration. So we're going to try to hit on that a bit. And we'll also hear from our panelists about taking valuable lessons and takeaways from prior standard work environment experiences and then implementing those into post-pandemic flexible work environments. Next we're going to hear from the panel about how their experiences inform their opinions on what it means to both seek the talent and be the talent, and what it's going to mean for us as individuals working within companies. And then sort of bigger picture, what does it mean for companies to not only attract but retain, right? What can the modern employer offer? And when you are the talent, what are you looking for? And it's really a question within that about how, you know, for a new graduate or someone just starting in the industry, what are you looking for in an employer? For experienced professionals, have you moved across departments? Have you shifted different companies based on, you know, an attraction to specific culture? And within all those contexts, how have you either reached down to pull someone up or reached up and sort of sought a new height, combining knowledge that you might have being either in the workforce for a long time, or someone who's relatively new, but perhaps has had exposure with different types of technology and ways of working? And sort of how did those end up benefiting everyone in the long run? And that sort of feeds into our last point, which is challenges and opportunities across generations. Obviously, we all know that there are a variety of ways to communicate and correspond with clients and internal stakeholders. And, you know, it's always a question of, is it just pick up the phone? Or are there really great ways that we can implement new technology and to sort of facilitate improvement in both serviceability and sort of analysis and job performance in the meantime? And then, as mentioned previously, we'll open up with some Q&A. So just to start, a fun chart defining the generations, obviously, in insurance, if we don't have a mutually agreed upon definition, what are we doing here? So just to sort of put it up, I mean, I know a lot of folks sort of see themselves because culture is fluid, right? And a lot of sort of the delineation within the age ranges or the year of birth, right? The culture doesn't just change between 1964 and 1965. Although there certainly can be sort of momentous changes. We're really talking about on trend, what are you familiar with, right? How do you best communicate? How do you best correspond? Things of that nature. So I, myself, we were chatting about this earlier. I would say I am a mid-millennial. Emily, I know you had mentioned that you are, you know, feel sort of the same way, maybe like an elder millennial. And you'll also hear sort of from our panelists and their experience sort of where they feel they fall. And you know, within that, we want to sort of pull the audience. So I'm going to launch a poll right now. I'd like to hear from everyone. Where do you think you land? What generation are you launching now? All right, we're almost 100% voted. Yay, I love the energy. I'm gonna wait a couple more seconds, unless there's anybody who really feels like they wanna hold out. It's cool, we're not judging. All right, there are a silent 4% that we will allow. That we will allow to continue on. I'm gonna close the poll now. Oops, are you guys seeing our results? It looks like we are majority millennials slash Gen Y, according to this, the combo layer, followed by Gen X and Baby Boomers in third, and a close last place for Zoomers in Gen Z, which is all good. I'm actually not sure anybody would refer to themself as a Zoomer, but it's cool. Again, I mean, it would actually be funny if we relaunched this poll and used the identifiers as what word we actually use to say cool, right? But I feel like hindsight is 20-20 on that. All right, so sort of clicking through, this was me. Honestly, this was me trying to figure out how to use the polls. I like to pretend I'm modern and can get with it, but then it took five times to practice something so simple, and here I am. So thank you for bearing with me as I launch this. I would like to introduce our panel a bit further. So let's see. Emily, our first panelist, senior underwriter at Markel. She's been in the industry 13 years with experience on both the carrier and of a broker side. She has her degree or undergraduate degree in public relations and a master's in higher education and counseling. And in her free time, she enjoys traveling, rooting for Chicago and Clemson sports, and is always looking for a great book recommendation. Me too. Next, McKenna Schneider. Thanks for joining us, McKenna. A senior at Illinois State University in the Cady School of Insurance and Risk Management. Also an incoming professional liability and cyber underwriter trainee at Zurich, North America. She has worked as a credit risk management intern at Zurich for the last two summers, and she's attended several conferences as a Gamma Iota Sigma and Cady School student, including being one of the 2023 IMUA scholarship recipients, congrats. Her hobbies include crafting and using digital marketing platforms to make gifts for her loved ones. Also joining us from the brokerage side, Max Sale. Max is an ABP at Amwins Property in Inland Marine. The crossroads between University of South Carolina Risk Management Institute and Gallagher Summer Internships have led him to five fulfilling years at Amwins, and he is an avid golfer and foodie. And last but certainly not least, Sharon Primerano, head of Inland Marine at AIG. 40 plus years of Inland Marine and still loving it. Thank you. I hope to be there too. And she said when she's not working, she is on the golf course or enjoying time with her family, the order in which depends on the weather. I agree with you 100%. So thank you for all making the time, obviously. And I really would just love to jump into our dialogue here. So I am going to steer to our panel. Okay. Can everybody see themselves? Are we good? Yes. All right, cool. So I would like to start by understanding, and I think Sharon, you're probably the best person for this, what do you see, or at least to kick off the conversation, what do you see as the job of your underwriters? Thank you, Gabby. And hi, everyone. So nice to be here at another IMUA event. So what do I see as the job of our underwriters? So I really view the job very simply. I mean, the job is to manage a profitable book of inland marine business. That is the job of an underwriter. I expect underwriters to follow guidelines and to really own their book and grow that book of business. Now, how do you do that? A big part of it is relationships. So internal and external relationships alongside that technical detailed work of being an underwriter. So when I think about it, so we said I've been doing this for 40 plus years, in that job, that description has not changed in 40 plus years. How we do the job has certainly changed, certainly evolved. And thinking about what we've gone through with the pandemic, we can really do that job anywhere. So I think I'm gonna be in three cities this week, and I'm gonna be doing that job wherever I am, right? So we've learned to do that. We've gotten really good at it. But no matter what, one thing that has not changed, especially in inland marine, is that underwriting is a really amazing combination of relationship building and technical underwriting. And that's why I think it's the greatest job in the world. I tend to agree. And there is clearly no bias in our decision-making with respect to that. Zero, zero. Zero. But I also, I think that it's worthwhile to hear from sort of the other side of the coin. And Max, you're a perfect person to answer that. So anything to sort of add from the broker side? Yeah, absolutely. Our underwriters, they certainly create the world in which we broker in on our side. And the way I see it is, there's almost like a regulatory aspect to the greater marketplace. Whereas if there's certain underwriters that are say stepping out of line against what the rest of the market's doing, it's gonna shift what the entire marketplace acts like, how risk is priced, and how we transact business, and the stability in which we can transact business as well. The other piece of it in more of a personal sense is definitely advisory. Being a broker and a younger one at that, being advised by underwriters and learning through them, learning how they view risk, and how that can create a kind of triaging effect for us as a broker is really important. And I think that the discourse that happens between underwriters and brokers is a lot of where relationships begin, because those conversations aren't always technical. Certainly, I couldn't talk on Sharon's level technically for more than maybe two or three minutes. So genuinely, we're gonna talk about things that interest us and really bridge for that personal relationship, which is gonna make business much more enjoyable. Excellent. So within that vein, right? I mean, and in our sort of discussions preparing for this discourse, right, you had mentioned that there is a necessary sort of third dimension of participation, really, right? Where our back and forth is not two dimensional between underwriter and broker, and then certainly for a broker on two sides, right? On the client side, when you're client facing, and then when you come back and you are sort of doing that back and forth with the underwriter. And sort of this is a really great way to go into our next question, which is really that surveys suggest that employees are very productive when they work remotely. But when half of the scope of your job is relationship development, right? How much, how productive are you really being, right? If you're sort of removed from that social, let's call it setting. Emily, you have brokerage experience. You are now an underwriter. Can you speak to that? Yeah, I think I would answer that honestly with another question, which is how are we measuring productivity? So for myself, I know that when I'm working remote, I'm probably a little bit more productive looking through my inbox, maybe addressing some questions, internal or external, and probably even with my pile of laundry when I'm remote. But to be truly productive, you need that balance, as you mentioned, with relationship. And I'm way more productive on an interpersonal level when I'm in the office, not only with my clients, but also with my colleagues in my entire workplace. So I think the answer to that is how are we measuring productivity and how are we finding a balance between maximizing all sides of productivity? Typical underwriter, answering questions with questions. No, just kidding. So to that, right, to that, we also have the perspective that McKenna brings to the table where you've not only gone through some internship experience where there's been some in and out of office sort of work, let's call it, but you also have had that sort of hybrid model through your college experience, which is pretty different, let's say, from the rest of us online, relatively speaking. If I'm looking, 13% of our attendees have had that experience. So that's something that we are not really, I don't wanna say we're not empathetic, but we haven't gone through it, right? So can you give us a little bit more texture about how it feels to have sort of gone through that very specific remote and then maybe any benefits or sort of long view of getting in the office and sort of how you view your productivity? Yeah, I can definitely say that when you think about school, it's way easier to be in person in class. And like for me, when classes were online, it was just hard to motivate myself to enter a Zoom meeting. I was just like, I can do that later. They're recording it anyways, it's not a big deal. So it's hard to hold myself accountable in that sense. And I just had a really hard time forcing myself to get things done or to even just show up to class. Things really just didn't feel real. That whole 2020 year of COVID, my freshman year of college was completely online. All I wanted to do was just hang out with my friends in my dorm room because I was never leaving my dorm. I was constantly in there for class, eating meals, hanging out, there was nothing else to do. So I just find myself to be a lot more productive and enjoy that in-person aspect. I'm a lot more motivated to get my assignments done when I can have that face-to-face with the teacher and also with my other peers and get to know the students in my class. I just feel a lot more comfortable with that. And working, when I had my internship, my first internship, I had the option to be remote sometimes in office. Most of the time, I think I worked from home three days that whole summer because it just wasn't for me. I had a really hard time focusing. When I'm at home, I have my dogs, I have my sisters, that sort of thing. So I just really liked being in the office. I was way more productive that way. It was easier for me to message somebody on Teams or call them or just turn to them and say, hey, I have a question. It's so much easier when someone's right next to you. You feel like you have that sort of relationship better than if somebody's only on the phone. It's just a little bit more nerve wracking, especially like starting out, you know so little compared to everybody else. Messaging a question on Teams or typing an email, it just makes you feel a little bit more self-conscious than just turning quickly and getting that done, if that makes sense. Definitely, the human element is so, so important, right? And I think that in everybody's answers so far, sort of the next question that we're asking, I've gotten an answer for already, right? So, you know, we really wanted to talk about, is there, you know, a way to strike a balance between perhaps letting super talented, super productive, high performers work from home versus prioritizing sort of learning of, you know, the learning of entrance into the industry, you know, being in office, how does that exchange actually happen? It honestly sounds like it's pretty self-regulated. I mean, we're everybody on this, you know, panel that we're talking to that everyone acknowledges that there are two sides to this business and it is a people side and a technical side. You know, I think, is there anything that the panel, and this is sort of open for anyone to start, does anybody think that there maybe should be something in place that almost sort of forces that in-person collaboration or do you feel that those in your orbit, right? And in your experiences sort of self-regulate that enough, right, to where you can depend on that environment to continue being the way it needs to be and carry on, let's say profitably, right? And with successful relationships. Sharon, you wanna kick it off? Yeah, yeah, I'll jump in, thank you. So I had a couple of thoughts on this topic. So first is that it can't just be a top-down approach. So like the management, here's what they say I have to do. Like it can't be just that. But you do need policies, right? Like you need some general guidance for everyone to follow. But there has to be flexibility built into that in order to make all this happen, right? In order to support that high performer that needs to work from home maybe a little more frequently, but also support the new entrant into the workplace that needs to be supported and developed. And then the other part of it, so it can't just be top-down, that means it has to also be bottom-up, right? So in order for it to be bottom-up, each of us at all levels, we have to think about more than ourselves, right? Like it's not just about me and what I need. I'm part of a team and I need to support the entire team. And I think if you just put that hat on, then it starts to happen more naturally. And it's very rewarding, right? Like you feel good when you know you're helping a teammate. Right on. Emily, can you comment, piggyback? Yeah, in following up with that, I think that there is an element of everyone needs to buy into this, but I also think that a lot of that, or at least part of that, lands on managers and company leadership to help cultivate a work environment that people see as an opportunity. Being in an office is an opportunity, not just a chore or ticking a box or meeting a quota. And so I think there is a lot of self work that we can all do as individuals, regardless of our title or our role in a company. I think it's just, is this a place that I wanna be? And am I creating an environment that I wanna be a part of? And I'll also throw in, this might be an unpopular opinion, but I truly think that the people most resisting a consistent return to office are probably the people who could benefit the most from it, either because they have the most to learn or because they have the most to share. And so I think being able to find a balance, obviously maintaining flexibility is gonna be key, but finding a balance to get buy-in from the people in your office, in your work community, it really starts there. Awesome, Max? Yeah, I think we touched really well on who has experience, who has some to gain or some to share, which I think is a really awesome way to look at it. Another element that I wanna add to this is culture. And I think it's such a huge thing for every great insurance organization. You might not just have technical skills in broking or underwriting, but you're gonna have a killer culture as well. And your employees are gonna spout that to whomever they transact with. So again, a lot of the people that have a lot to share or a lot to gain who are working from home, they're not contributing to culture as well. And I think all of us that work through COVID can remember virtual happy hours and the attempts to stay in touch. And I cringe thinking about that. So it was a good attempt, but it didn't land. So in terms of maintaining a happy work environment and promoting culture, everyone plays a part in that, whether you're a veteran like Sharon or someone who's just entering the workforce like McKenna and in between like Emily and I. Excellent. This honestly flows really nicely into sort of our next section talking about what company policies are, right? How are we actually engaging and holding space for our colleagues? Max, this is like flowing right out of the sort of the culture comment, right? Does anybody feel that, honestly, Sharon, you said something that I really, really enjoyed. You said you need to think about someone more than yourself. Do you think that sort of how you've seen everybody come back to work with hybrid, do you see that level of consideration? And maybe it doesn't have to be specific to your shop, right? Maybe it can be with partners that you chat with or just in sort of general interactions in the industry. Was that for Sharon? It was for Sharon. I'm sorry. I just wanted to make sure. So I feel like I am seeing it happen for sure. And especially, so I work in our Philadelphia office where I don't have any in the Marine people there with me. Occasionally I have one who visits and she's on the call right now. Hi, Anne. But for the most part, I'm with all other lines of business. But I have, I sit near a group of casualty underwriters and I have seen, like since we've really come back, how they have just, like they come back more and more and I see them interacting with each other more and more. And I hear them talking about things, whether it be risk, whatever. One day I thought they were talking about an account and they were actually betting on who, when a certain person was gonna get into the office, which I thought that was pretty funny. But I actually, I went home, and then I heard somebody like laugh out loud, like in another part of the office. And I went home to my husband that night and I'm like, oh my God, I felt like I was really in the office today. Like it felt like the old days, you know, people were laughing and telling jokes. So that I try to share that with everyone, especially folks who are newer to the workforce and don't really know what it was like before back in the day. So just wanting everyone to know that your work should be fun, right? You said that Max, like we should enjoy each other's company and I believe that the highest performing teams, that's how they operate. They care about each other, they enjoy working together. So yeah, I feel like I am seeing it, yeah. Excellent, and Emily, how about for you? Do you feel like in where you're at and in your sort of interactions that you see a level of engagement sort of improving with being sort of all in one spot? Absolutely, I feel really fortunate. I sit in Chicago and that's kind of a hub in many ways for my product line nationally. and so I think it's kind of the best of all worlds, because now we've got a really strong return-to-office culture, you know, I've got a lot of people who are in my product line in the office, but also colleagues in other product lines, and I think it's been really beneficial because I'm also incorporating in some of the skills that I had to work a little bit harder on during, you know, during COVID, which is just picking up the phone, and I will always argue that you can get so much more accomplished via phone than via email, and so that was something that everyone had to get pretty comfortable with if they weren't already during, you know, COVID, and work remote was just being able to pick up the phone, and so knowing that I've got a connection with people in person, but also, you know, I've been working for the last couple years a lot more via phone than I had to, you know, prior to COVID. So it's kind of a best of, best of all worlds scenario. Perfect, and we, again, you know, we're really talking about sort of, I guess we'll say like reinvigorating culture, right? Because I mean, obviously there have been sort of a lot of shifts with people moving here and there over overall, but you know, living in the teams that we live within and that we work within, there is a lot that has changed since prior, right? I think, Max, you're actually a really good person to sort of kick off that discussion about what change, you graduated in 2019, you had five whole minutes of normal, and then the world did what the world did, and now we're here, right? So how, how has it changed? Is there, do you see a difference in culture? And maybe it's not company culture, but just sort of work environment, like run with this, however you want to go. I think culture is fairly similar. I mean, that exists when we all come together. I think it's more so the expectations and what we view as normal. I know a big coin phrase for a while during COVID is, this is the new normal. And our new normal has shifted, you know, almost in three stages since it was entirely remote. Working back maybe one to two days a week, and now we've all landed somewhere probably around three to four days for the majority of companies. So that shift in the new normal has been rapid. And I think if you compare that to stretches of other years, there hasn't been that much change in that three to five year period really ever. So it's interesting to see now when I'm in the phase of my career where we're hiring for support on my team, to see what newer employees expect, to see that we are discussing a four-day work week for someone who's going to be doing intensive training for six months. Whereas when I started in 2019, that wasn't an option. It was, I might beg for a day to work from home that's kind of parallel to a holiday to extend that. And I'm going to be really happy if I get granted that permission. Guilty. Yes, yes, definitely. And this is sort of a great touch point on, you know, you are now in a position where you're attracting talent, right? McKenna, you are the incoming talent. So what do you see? And not just in your experience, of course, but if you see things that you find to be curious sort of in your interactions with your colleagues at school, what is the general focus of when you are the talent, what are you moving toward? What do you want in an employer? I think when you think about working remotely, for example, a lot of us students, we want that in person. We want the companies that are going to have a lot of people in the office, not just requiring the new hires to be in three to four days a week. But everybody at any level should be in around that much, because when you think back to when you guys were new hires at an organization, you want that face to face. You know nothing and you want to absorb as much information from other people as you can. So having that sort of culture, that supportive environment where everybody wants to be in and it's not doesn't feel like a chore for them, that's super important. And then just looking at the overall happiness and the culture of the team that you're going to be joining. I think Max has touched on this a lot. But when I was interviewing last semester, something I was looking for was how are my conversations with these people? Do they feel natural or do they feel very forced? Or am I able to be a little bit more personable with them? Or are the conversations very professional? And I can't really be an individual in that aspect, because it's so important to bring yourself to the table too, especially in insurance when your personality and making those connections are so important. So I think, I mean, it differs for everybody. Some of my friends love to work from home and that's great for them. So it's really just finding that balance and being able to talk to as many people as you can. Maybe it's the company offering for us to come into their office in the nearest city so we can see what that culture is in person because interviews don't happen in person anymore. They're completely online and you do sort of miss out on that aspect that previous new hires got. They got that in-person look. They got to even just see the office. Where would I be working? And that's so important. So just having that aspect, I guess, is important to a lot of us. Without a doubt. And I wonder, and I think this is a really good question to sort of springboard, not just insurance, right? But Inland Marine specifically, what do we offer that's maybe different, right? Is there an extra layer of personal? Is there, I don't know, is there maybe a level of technicality that requires going back and forth with someone who is more senior, who has that experience, right? Who has something to give that really sort of solidifies that knowledge share, right? And it facilitates that knowledge share. Emily, do you have any ideas on that? Sure. I feel really fortunate to have found Inland Marine when I started my career in insurance. I was on the broker side and I was also on the property side. So throughout, you know, as my career progressed, I found Inland Marine the way that everyone seems to find insurance, which is randomly. I didn't even know really what Inland Marine was until I was many years into my career. And when the opportunity, you know, the opportunity presented itself, switching product lines was a little terrifying, but I'm so happy that I found it. And since then, I've really come to appreciate the closeness that Inland Marine professionals have with each other because it is such a niche product. And so I think that we are able to, if you seek it out, I think that there is an opportunity for a real closeness and a camaraderie between a lot of the professionals in our product line that you don't always find amongst other larger product lines. And so versus, you know, someone feeling buried in, you know, the world of casualty, I feel like Inland Marine is a really unique space. And because there's not as many people doing what we do, I value my relationships with some of my competitors as much as I do with some of my colleagues and, you know, direct clients, just because I can learn as much or more from someone like Sharon, who's, you know, in this industry and works at a different company and a competitor in a lot of ways. But that's, I think, a really unique way for us to find opportunities to grow the camaraderie in our in our little niche product line. And I love it. Max, thoughts? Yeah, from my side, it's interesting because Inland Marine is probably the most expansive first party line of insurance when we think about industries that are involved, number of coverage forms, the amount of knowledge needed. And every Inland Marine underwriters book is going to be divided differently amongst construction and transportation, maybe a little bit of fine arts, miscellaneous warehousing. It's massively expansive. And the amount of knowledge that even comes through an organization like the IMUA is it's tough to get anywhere else. And the other piece that Emily touched on, I work in the property world probably for about two thirds versus one third, which is within Inland Marine. And there's probably four times the property markets that I trade with on a regular basis. The industry is a little bit larger in that piece, but the culture is definitely nowhere near what it is on this side. And specifically, transacting business in Chicago. There's so many faces, so many names and such a camaraderie amongst all those folks. Excellent. So, I mean, obviously, they're all really. Yeah. Can I can I add one more? Yes, please. I just I listening to everyone and thinking about it, like what what makes Inland Marine different in this regard? I'm just thinking about all the just the thousands of types of Inland Marine risk that are out there. And like we you can't really learn in the marine just from a book. Right. You need to talk to other underwriters, experienced underwriters who have seen all these different types of risk. And it just that I think we're unique in that in that way. And another thing that this is something someone said to me many, many years ago is that Inland Marine is the lab of insurance. So many times like business that other underwriters, property underwriters usually don't know what to do with those types of risk end up in Inland Marine insurance. So in order to tackle those types of risk, you know, something hits your desk. It's like, I have no idea what that is. You need that more experienced person to like just bounce it off of and talk about it. And because you may be developing a new product for all you know. This is an awesome point. I actually really like that, that it's the lab, right, because it's all it's all testing and it's and it's important to do so. Right. Because at the end of the day, if we have that kind of flexibility to provide some type of solution, I mean, that's that further solidifies the relationship. Right. And it also makes you a sharper underwriter. With that, right, how how can you how can you offer right that sentiment? How can you offer that in a way that is or, you know, included in your interactions when you are looking to acquire talent? Right. How that's sort of the next the next question is, I mean, that's the kind of stuff being able to peek over the cube and say, hey, I am looking at this. I'm not sure really what I could do. I'm thinking I could play it these couple of ways. What about that form? I like this definition. Right. How do you and I don't want to use the word advertised like not what I mean. It's just a convenient word. How do you really project that that's, you know, that the place that you work has that right? How how can you how can that be conveyed to to the talent that we're trying to attract? I think, you know, Sharon, if you want to keep going since you brought the topic up. Yeah. So to me, I mean, it is really it's a collaboration. Right. So I think if I'm interviewing someone, I'm trying to attract talent, you know, to work on our team. I just share this. This is how we work. Right. Like we collaborate. You're not just like sitting on your own doing something like something crosses your desk. You're going to be talking to one, two, maybe three people because the more brains are going to come up with the better decision. And we're all going to learn from the process. So to me, it's just about sharing. This is how we work. And then to McKenna's point, culture matters and fit matters like you. You need to as someone who might be interviewing, you need to ask the right questions to make sure this is that is this is a place that is going to fit for me because everybody's different. You know. Absolutely. And that's a really great, you know, culture obviously can can very much inform whether or not a workplace is is even healthy. Right. So what is I mean, I think, you know, Max, you sort of touched on this previously when you talked about sort of culture and and attracting talent. What do you see as that sort of I mean, you know, you could say it's the same. I would get it because I I'm a full believer on all things that, you know, Sharon is hitting on. But Max, in your experience, I mean, what do you think that it means to retain talent? Right. What kind of work are you putting in to make sure that they know that they're coming to a place where they're going to get what they need? Right. I think part of it is fun, to put it really simply. Right. Because no one on this call will say that you can do this career and not work hard. You can't gain expansive knowledge needed to play within this product line and just be all work, no play. I don't think that really works in our industry. And for as hard as we work, we have almost as much fun most of the time. And I think going back to my time when I was McKenna's age, going into the workforce, you kind of compare and contrast what your role is like with your friends and colleagues and having the most fun job. It doesn't matter how hard you work. If you have a great time, you enjoy your colleagues and you're doing things that are cool outside of work that add to that culture with your co-workers or through work events or even through like an IMUA event, that makes all the difference. And it gives you kind of a nice social piece that your job is not just your job. You know, it's something that takes up a significant part of your life, but it's in equal parts enjoying that and also being rewarded by that role. Emily, anything to add on that? Yeah, I think just specific to talent retention and maybe even talent acquisition prior to retention is just being transparent. I think that at least in my perspective as a middle, senior millennial, it's just that so much has changed, especially in the last four years. But since I entered the workforce, I think that there's a lot more questions being asked. And every single interview, it is the employee interviewing the employer just as much, if not more, as the employer interviewing the candidate. And I think that the more you can do to be transparent on the employer side, the easier it's going to be to build rapport, to build a team, and to surround yourself with people who want to be there. And so if you are saying the expectation is ABC and someone gets to, you know, day one, week one, and it's XYZ, you have already, you know, put yourself in a situation where you are, you know, you're working twice as hard to retain the person who you got there in the first place. So anything that you can do to be transparent about the highs and the lows, I think is going to help retain and attract talent. McKenna, any final thoughts as the incoming sort of generation of insurance talent? Yeah, definitely. I think everybody hit it beautifully on the nose with different aspects of it. I just want to touch on like the overall happiness as an individual going to work, you're working for a much bigger thing. It's way bigger than you are, way bigger than your team. And it's affecting so many other people. And that can be super stressful. But what I've seen through my mom or my dad, when they've been working is how happy they are. Do they, are they not only enjoying the work that they're doing, but the people that they're going to work with? Because that affects a lot of different aspects of your life. It can affect you personally when you're outside of work, too. So having that ability, like I just think for a lot of people my age, being happy with what you do and who you're working with is so important. And that's what's going to make me stay or leave a job. Like I could be working with the most interesting line of business. But if the people that I'm working next to every day, just they're not my cup of tea and they're making or just something is not making me happy overall. I'm going to want to maybe look to move, but I don't want to also do that. I'm kind of a loyal person. I want to stay where I am and I want to find happiness where I am. So I think a lot of people my age, we're just looking to be happy with what we're doing and it's hard to find that. But, you know, having the transparency, having that great culture, it's all going to work together and help us young, young, new or new hires, like have that good experience, if that makes sense. Right on. And I, you know, we actually have one more poll. Good job, audience. Holding strong. Only a couple have have dipped off, so we should have a good sampling against what our first poll was. But I'm going to launch another poll, which is to ask how important and I think this piggybacks right off of what McKenna was saying. How important is it to you to derive a sense of purpose from your work? So please be honest. Launching now. I'm going to let that run for maybe 25-30 seconds or if everybody votes all at once and we're fulfilled, then I'll close it and let everyone know their responses. All right, 80%. 85%. Let's go, guys. 87%. Anyone else? The results are looking like how I thought they were going to look, but I just want to, you know, give everyone the opportunity here to prove me wrong. 88%. All right, going once. Going twice. All right, we're going to close it. And share our results. So 65% of our attendees say that it is very important that they feel a sense of purpose and 29% say somewhat important. So it's important. There's, you know, we have a 1% response of not at all and 5% slightly important. I think that overall the vast majority here of our attendees really think that it is very important that they derive a sense of purpose from what they do. And I actually, in sort of preparing for this webinar, I found that McKinsey, like the consulting company McKinsey, they published an article a few years back that was based on sort of voluntary survey responses. But it suggested that when employees have a chance to reflect on their own sense of purpose and how it connects to their company's purpose, their results overall can improve between two and five times that which someone who is looking at it from nearly a, you know, show up, collect a paycheck, go home standpoint, right? And I think bearing this in mind, we can ask the panel, starting with Sharon, if she's okay with it, to share from her sort of wide experience, right? If you've seen a shift in attitude from when you were an entrant and you were the new talent in, you know, from purpose, right? I mean, was it much more specific to I just go do my job, punch the clock and go home when you first started? Is it different now? Give us a little narrative. Yeah, so I would say it wasn't so much punch the clock. I mean, there's always going to be some people that it's just a job, its own, you know, that that's it. But certainly like the idea of having a sense of purpose in your work is much more talked about now. And I think me kind of going through my career, I used to think to have a sense of purpose, I needed to be a doctor, right? You know, something like, ooh, yes, literally saving lives, right? But that I have learned over the years, that's not the case. I mean, I get my sense of purpose from helping people, you know, people on my team, helping them grow, helping them develop. And also insurance is purpose-filled. I mean, we are solving people's problems, customers' problems every day. We are there at their time of need. So it's very much a purpose-filled job. We just don't always think about it. And definitely me growing up through, you know, earlier in my career, we never talked about it. So I am so happy that now we identify it, we see it, and we are talking about it. Emily, and it's just to sort of spring through from Sharon's response. I mean, do you feel like where, that there is effort sort of put forth to make your, like in your environment, right, in your orbit, that there is effort to make the place that you work fulfilling? Do you feel like it's easy to feel fulfilled because of perhaps the touch points that Sharon had mentioned, right, where you're actually very customer-focused? What is your take on sort of a generation, like a place where you can be fulfilled no matter what the generation, right? What's your experience? What I've come to understand, I think when I was younger in my career, earlier in my career, I found fulfillment and satisfaction in a really numerical fashion. Like, oh my gosh, I found a deal for X amount of premium dollars, and that must mean that I'm really amazing. And the more that I have progressed in my journey, you know, as a professional, as an individual, and just honestly as a human being, I get so much more satisfaction out of it. I get so much more satisfaction out of being able to say, you know what, I helped someone today. I taught someone something today. I learned something today. I had a really great conversation with a colleague today, and being able to readjust how I value myself as an employee has been absolutely life-changing. And so obviously it still matters, you know, the deals that I'm finding and bringing to my company and my team, but that's not the only thing. And I think when you are newer in your career, the perspective that you have on that is so different, at least in my experience, it's just massively shifted. And so being able to find that balance has really helped me find the most fulfillment in what I do and just realizing that it's not, it's not just the on-paper job description. And in fact, the things that matter the most are the things that are so far outside my job description. So I really, really enjoyed that. So Max, I have you slated to answer this question, but I feel like you nailed it about 10 minutes ago when you said that it's really important to have a fun job. I also don't wanna put words in your mouth. So do you have any sort of recommendations, let's say, you know, out there that you see that are maybe low hanging through opportunities that we can make sure that we're seizing to make the places that we work fulfilling? One thing we touched on is sense of purpose. And I think that oftentimes comes with opportunity or a clear path. And that's something that's preached throughout all of our Inland Chicago office, mostly because of our branch leadership. I saw Jud O'Neill's on here, so I wanted to give him a shout out. But I think one thing that- Hi Jud! I used to do cargo claims with Jud way back. Salute you, sir. I hope he treated you well, but I'm sure he did. One thing that's just ingrained in our culture is just to create a clear opportunity. And that's different for each individual. So I think that goes hand in hand with sense of purpose and having clarity in terms of what your opportunities are and what it's gonna take to get there. Right on. And this is all, we sort of have been dancing around the concept of mentorship with this, right? How are we holding space for one another? How are we making sure that we're reaching a strong hand down or maybe propping ourselves up so we can offer maybe an advantage sort of to the group that we are perhaps more familiar with than other folks who have been in the industry for a while, but might have a more myopic view because they're so used to just the day-to-day doing of their job, right? Has anybody on the panel had experience either being a mentor or in a mentorship program? I guess I can just, I know I'm not on the panel, but I can volunteer. I did do a mentorship program here at Everest. And the lady, every time I talked to her, she was like, you should really just be an underwriter. And she was right. Anybody have any experience? I guess, Emily, if you wanna kick it off, any experience with mentorship or sort of recommendations for anyone who might be seeking it out? Sure. I think my number one recommendation is just to remain humble. No one gets where they're going by themselves. No one is top underwriter alone. It's because of the team you work with, the team that you support, the team that supports you, the people around you. And so just recognizing that anywhere that you are trying to get professionally, you are not doing that by yourself. And I think specific to mentorship, I would just recommend everyone being open to that in any form and fashion. And don't limit yourself just to your company or your product line or your side of the industry. We have panelists who represent the broker side and the underwriting side and the upcoming entrance into the industry. So just making sure that you are open to all sides of mentorship, both giving and receiving. Erin? I could talk an entire hour about mentorship, but I won't. So I've benefited from mentorship my entire career. I'm happy to be a mentor, but I feel like I just kind of do that naturally. I am very focused on my own, me as a mentee. So I'm always interested in formal mentorship programs. And I encourage everyone, if you have the opportunity to be a part of a formal mentorship program, that you do it, you will get something out of it. The other thing I would say is, as a mentee, you have to be purposeful. You have to know what you're looking to get out of the relationship. You have to plan for your sessions, be ready for your sessions, and take, so you want a mentor that's gonna push you outside your comfort zone, right? So I've certainly had mentors who have done that for me, and it has been so powerful. And it's actually one of the reasons I'm in the job I'm in today, is I had a mentor who's like, you need to go for that. I'm like, really? It's like, yes. So I'm like, okay. And I listened to her, and here I am. So I just think it's amazing what you can get out of those mentor-mentee relationships. And then the other comment I wanna make is think about mentor-mentee relationships in a reverse way, too. So I think about thinking across the generations. You have that more experienced underwriting person who's been around a while, knows tons about underwriting. Then you have this newer person coming into the workplace who is probably a lot more tech-savvy. And that can be a wonderful mentor-mentee relationship where you are teaching each other. So I would just throw that out there. For sure. Max, have you had any experience with any mentorship interactions? Yes, more than one, multiple, actually. I think about it all the time. And moments of success, that it's a shared accomplishment, whereas you wouldn't have had the opportunity to make a high achievement. I had a particular gentleman in my office, not part of my direct team, part of my division, who walked me through and introduced me to every division head who wrote Framebuilder's Risk at one time. And I think of that as a real crowning point in my career where all of a sudden I had all this information that I could utilize. And the coolest thing about it is is that I could never pay him back for what he gave me. And the same goes for several mentors that I've had. There is no possible way to give them what they've given you in scale because of their position and the experience they hold that they weren't able to give to you. So I think the coolest thing is mentorship's a very circular action, whereas you cannot push what you've been given back up. You can only give it back out in the other direction. So it's cool to be almost invigorated to give back to the next generation and hopefully compile the experience needed to really be an impactful mentor and do what has been done to me by others. Couldn't have said it better. Very, very, very well said. McKenna, you're somebody who's going to be coming into a variety of probably opportunities to take advantage of mentorship programs. Is there anything that you might go into sort of with trepidation about, or is there anything that you feel like you would want to investigate prior that would sort of make a difference for you in interacting with a program like that? I mean, I've had a mentor. Emily was actually my mentor when I attended the annual conference last year for IMUA, which was great. I mean, it just made me so much more comfortable when I attended. I had been to conferences before, but usually it was with a lot of other students from my school or with our director of the Katie School. She was there with us. So it was just me and another student who I didn't know too well at the time. So having Emily there as a familiar face to introduce us to a bunch of people, to make things a lot easier in understanding, like when we had questions, but we didn't want to ask them in front of a whole group during an educational session, like that was great. And again, it's that you can't always pay it back. You can only pay it forward. So as a student who's had the opportunity to go to a lot of different conferences, all I can do to really help younger students get more involved in the Katie School and in insurance in general is just let them know about my experience, how great going to different conferences is, how to prepare yourself to do that. And also just promoting mentorship. It's a big topic right now in school. I don't know if it was when you guys were in school, but it's very promoted. Get a mentor, get one early and stay in contact with them. It's really something that you get out what you put into it. I mean, you're gonna have multiple mentors throughout your career. And from those mentorship relationships, you're gonna obviously get different things out of that too. So just promoting that to younger students, I've had that promoted to me plenty of times, but it's also joining organizations like Young Risk Professionals or joining a RIMS chapter near you when you graduate, just letting people know that as a mentor to a mentee, there's so many more ways you can get involved than just that one-on-one mentorship. It's also group-based sometimes outside of your company, if that makes sense. Definitely, definitely. And it is really probably the coolest thing about it is that it's a pass it on kind of thing. The only way to say thank you is to do it for someone else, right? That's really super cool. So there's gonna be a lot of sort of movement in the next 10 years in the industry. These are sort of a final thought question for everybody, and then we'll sort of open up Q&A. So hang on guys. But with a sort of larger shift in members of the workforce over the next 10 years, is there enough space for younger professionals to fill the pipeline, right? I mean, are there enough people whose feet can go in those shoes, right? Is there anything that we can do to sort of help? And obviously mentorship is a big part of this, right? But is there anything that we can sort of look to do to develop both top-down, let's say, and bottom-up relationships that will ease that sort of shifting in the next sort of generation of folks who would plan to be retiring? I'm gonna punt that one to Emily. Sure, I think that our industry always has room for upcoming professionals, and especially because while I'm assuming the majority of the people on this call are on the underwriting side, they're a broking side. Maybe someone is destined to be an actuary, and God bless them, and the people who we need in our claims and accounting departments. And I think that there's always room for people in insurance. And I guess my only advice for people looking what their career trajectory is gonna be in the next three years, five years, 10 years on, just don't be so eager to change jobs, or jump ship, or seek a promotion. Don't forget that you need to do the work to be successful wherever you land. And so a new title or a shiny new job is great, but just make sure that you are building the skillset needed so that when you get to that next step, that you are prepared and you can be successful. All right, Dawn. So what are, and this is sort of a question to piggyback off of Emily's comments for McKenna, what are some things that we can be thinking about in the next, I don't know, let's say four years, right? To be proactive about helping entrants into the industry put in their time, like Emily is saying, right? In a, bless you, in a constructive way, right? How best can we help each other to ensure business continuity at the end of the day? Yeah, I think it all goes back to that great culture that you're creating within your team and your whole workplace, but also you have, I'm sure a lot of new hires in your own office. So when you're looking to hire someone new onto your team, go to them and just say, what were you looking for in a job? What questions did you have or concerns did you have before entering this industry? Because at the end of the day, it's a really big decision that you're making. I'm starting the rest of my life in just a couple of months and that was so scary to think about. I'm potentially doing what I'm gonna do for the next 40 years. Sure, career changes can happen, but a lot of us want that stability. So I think just going to those newer hires in your organizations, not necessarily fresh grads, but just people who switch careers. Why did they do it? I mean, there's plenty of reasons to do, to make a career change for a lot of people, or just to go into insurance as a student. It's a hard choice. I think just asking people, why did you do that? What did you, like, what were your thought processes? What were your concerns? So that you can have a better understanding of where people who are graduating college now are thinking, because a lot of times we're all thinking the same thing or relatively the same thing. We're having those same questions, the same concerns as one another. So just going to the resources that you have, sitting potentially next to you at work, it can help you so much just to prepare yourself to answer questions in interviews. Because one thing I don't love is when you ask HR a question and they're like, oh, we're not sure about that. And it's like, how do you not know? You have so many people you could ask. And like that, or even just in my interviews with potential managers that I could be working under, you want those clear answers. And obviously they're not going to have a question or an answer to every single question I have, but just some sort of work with the resources you have. There's plenty of people at your disposal that want to help you get great people to work for you too, if that makes sense. Definitely. So I'm hearing culture, transparency, collaboration, just sort of keeping all of the things that we know are critical levers in doing the business that we do, keeping them going, right? Thanks so much, panel members. I am going to open up Q&A. I mean, I don't literally have to do anything, but you all do. So dear audience, if you would add any questions that you might have for the panel and I will field them over, feel free. I think we have about 20 minutes left. So, you know, let them fly. I'm getting one. It says, this question is for Max, which underwriting team is your favorite to work with and why is it Markel in Chicago? I'll give Max the gift card if he can guess who asked it. Um, I'm gonna guess it was Gina Dimitrovich. I wish it was Roseanne Spoda, who's now retired, who's one of my favorite underwriters ever, but I'll give a really simple answer. It's because they bought us a kegerator for our office. Wow. Nice. Nice. We had a comment earlier, Sharon, for you from Catherine Riddell. She says, I still have the notes I took when I was learning I am underwriting over 20 years ago and yes, I still refer to them on occasion. Excellent. So happy to hear that. Anybody else? Questions, comments? Pretty quiet over here. So I think, well, let's see. Give everybody, okay, here's another one. Not a question, but a comment that I so appreciate McKenna's perspective as we try to recruit and retain Gen Z. That was from Amy Mangrum. Thank you. Happy to give my opinion. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today. McKenna, we're so happy you chose insurance. 100%. Yes. I'm happy that I chose it too, trust me. It's definitely the best thing I could have studied in school. I'm really happy I go to a school that has a program for it too. I majored in basket weaving, but I'm here. All right. I think, I think I'm gonna go ahead and move on. All right. I think, I think we'll close it down. We gave another minute or so and we didn't hear, we didn't hear much. Actually just got one more comment from Michelle who said, I wish HR people were on this call. Yes, yes, I agree. Well, look, I wanna just extend an extra thank you to the panelists and to the IMUA for setting up the, sorry, I'm faffing here, for setting this whole thing up. Any questions or comments, obviously, feel free to reach out to Kevin, Lillian, Allie, and Eileen. Feel free to reach out if there's any further questions or anything. I'm sure all of us would make ourselves available because this is about lending out a helping hand, right? So again, thanks everybody for their time and hope you have a great rest of your day.

mentorship

fulfilling work environment

future workforce

insurance industry

Inland Marine

transparency

collaboration

purpose

mentorship programs

work culture

generational learning