Starting a career in insurance: Canadian Insurance Scholarship Program recipient Laurie Jones
View the video here on your mobile device.
The last few years have proved to be challenging for many workers. The economic pressures felt around the world resulted in layoffs, downsizing and cost-cutting in industries across the board.
For former freelance writer Laurie Jones, the economic downturn was actually a springboard to a career in insurance. Armed with experience in communications and sales and with a drive for a steady career with built-in work-life balance, Laurie jumped into preparing for her new endeavor. To help, she received a BCAA Scholarship from the Canadian Insurance Scholarship Program.
Now, the Nanaimo-based licensed insurance professional is embarking on an exciting new career. ILSTV asked Laurie what advice she’d give to other newcomers to the insurance industry.
Laurie Jones: Explore it because it’s not just something that’s really boring. Once you start exploring it, you find that there’s all kinds of interesting avenues that you can go down and the education process is, I’m finding out, mandatory to maintain your license every year, but through the education you learn more about the industry and what the policies are capable of and how they can be useful to so many people of all ages and all walks of life. But I think as far as career longevity, that’s another reason that people want to get into it and have a long career that can take you all kinds of directions. And you don’t have to just go on one path because there are so many aspects of the insurance industry that – especially younger people – start at one angle and learn and grow in all kinds of different areas. It’s also a portable skill, within the province where you’re licensed, of course, but once you’ve got your license, you can move from a small town to a big town if that’s what you want. Or, vice versa: you can move to any town, if you move for family purposes once you have your license and have the basic skill sets, you can use that to have a lifelong career.
Laurie said that unlike many industries, there is something for almost everyone in insurance.
Laurie Jones: I say I’m numerically challenged. Numbers and I don’t get along at all; I’m a writer. This is why I was intimidated to even think about going into the insurance industry because you see people writing down how much is policy value, how much do you want to spend on this and if you spend this … and they were putting all these numbers and crunching and handwriting numbers and I thought “Yeah, no… I don’t want to do that.” But once you learn the computer system, the computer does it for you in some cases. And they don’t have to be so intimidated by the numbers or I wouldn’t have to be so intimidated by the numbers. It’s more about knowledge. Knowledge is key.
Are you interested in sponsoring an industry newcomer? Or do you know someone who could benefit from a scholarship to get their career going? Visit theworldofopportunities.com for more information
