Pros
Great co-workers, decent location, some flexibility with the hours (as in, when you can come and go, not how many you're working) - but that's about it.
Cons
Pay is sub-par (and I mean REALLY poor). New medical underwriters were hired on at a lower salary than some of the dental underwriters. It was nonsense. There are people who work within the company who have literally created new spreadsheets that can do calculations and save tons of time and money for the company (other underwriters would use these spreadsheets) but you wouldn't hear a thing from management about this. Management prefers drone-like employees who have no opinions: you come into work, you leave work. There are underwriters who have been with the company for over 20 years whose work is just overwritten by management for no real reason (well, other than "we need to hit sales goals"). I don't understand - why even bother with actuarial data and facts when there are "sales goals" that need to be met? This didn't happen just once or twice, but basically the entire time I was there I saw it on a daily basis (yes, daily). I would deal with underwriters stressing out about audits, reviews, critique panels, training, traveling, work hours (14+ hours per day during busy season and 10+ hours per day during regular season), poor pay, poor insurance benefits, poor vacation, lack of time off, etc. The amount of complaining was ridiculous - I worked with about 50 other UWers and only a handful liked their job. Most of the other UWers were there because they couldn't find other work, they lacked the confidence to try to find work elsewhere, or they just liked being miserable. I think the poor morale is what did it for me in the end. Turnover is unbelievable. The company needs to hire about 100% more people than it thinks it will need every year because half of the new hires will quit within two years. In 6 months, half of my specific hiring class had quit (and we all worked in different locations - so it wasn't just my location specifically). Because so many people quit before peak busy season, the work volume increases significantly for the rest of the employees - who are then expected to get all that work done in the same time (translation: work 14+ hours M-F and on weekends for about four months straight). Granted, some employees have better time-management skills than others, but the UWing job is very detail oriented and requires a lot of time regardless of how fast you work. Nonetheless, when it's "slow" employees are scoffed at when they need to leave an hour early for a doctor's appointment or personal issue. I mean, if you're working 80 hours a week for three-four months straight, you'd expect some leniency the rest of the year - nope. I also found the management to be highly unprofessional: lots of yelling, cussing, throwing stuff (who does that). If you want to know what it's really like to work here - watch Office Space.
