Cool insurance-related jobs, real or fictional!

July 9, 2016 1:09 PM

Seeking good descriptions of insurance jobs that are as gripping as I know they can be -- ideally, not life or health, but more like writing policies or investigating damage/loss to property. A fact-laden account of the work performed by real people would be best, but fictional is okay too. I remember television's Banacek, and the Thomas Crown Affair, as being interesting but not much about the nitty-gritty; incidental characters as in Groundhog Day (watch out for that pothole!) not as helpful. Thanks!
posted by Clyde Mnestra to Media & Arts (17 answers total)

There's "the transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account — America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator" Johnny Dollar. My local NPR station (WAMU) plays it in the evenings sometimes.
posted by selfmedicating at 1:21 PM on July 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Double Indemnity, the novel, or the classic film noir with Barbara Stanwyck.
posted by zadcat at 1:25 PM on July 9, 2016 [4 favorites]

Airframe may or may not count. She's the VP of quality assurance investigating the cause of a plane crash.
posted by cmoj at 1:37 PM on July 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, folks. Not familiar with Airframe, others good too. Don't hold back if you have can think of descriptions that struck you as containing boring amounts of industry jibber-jabber . . . the problem I am encountering is too little of that, rather than too much!
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 2:25 PM on July 9, 2016

Does that include bond insurance? If so, you might be interested in Christine Richard's Confidence Game.
posted by praemunire at 2:52 PM on July 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Dan Simmons' novel Darwin's Blade is a thriller whose protagonist is an accident-reconstruction specialist, mostly working for a husband-and-wife team of insurance investigators.

Simmons' brother is an accident investigator, and Simmons says that all the incidents in the book are based on real investigations.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:44 PM on July 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Your question reminded me that I once had a job interview with a company that was an insurer of last resort. If you needed insurance tomorrow, and the normal insurers wouldn't provide it, this was the company to go to. With those parameters, you could make up 100 stories yourself. They also provided insurance for things where there was no basis for ordinary underwriting like one-day, one-time events.

It also occurred to me that hedging and arbitrage are forms of self-insurance used in financial firms, commodities traders, etc. The infamous credit/default swaps involved in the 2008 crash are also a form of insurance. You might find discussions of any of these things in books about 2008.

I searched Amazon for "Insurance Investigator" There is lots there but I really like the look of these two:

The Waiting (Neal Harris-Faith-Based Insurance Investigator Series Book 5)

and

The Investigator's Little Black Book 3
posted by SemiSalt at 4:06 PM on July 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I work for a large property-casualty insurer, but my day to day work is not that exciting (at least from the outside) as it's mostly analyzing lots of numbers. However, I do work in the excess and specialty space, which means the lines of business are always really interesting - aviation (like insuring large airlines), fine art, hull and marine (think both ships and "inland" marine - transportation of goods by trucks), catastrophic property coverage etc. Your best bet would be to look at specialist underwriting jobs - for example, if you were underwriting construction for the MTA or the MBTA, you would probably get to go inspect the tunnels they were building etc.
posted by peacheater at 4:46 PM on July 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Franz Kafka and Wallace Stevens both worked for large insurance companies while they write on the side. There are biographies of both out there that discuss their careers.

Lorelai's father on Gilmore Girls is a fictional character who works in insurance. He's not a major character, but the topic of his work comes up occasionally.

I used to work in forced-placed insurance, and I'm sure there are fun stories there, although I don't have any. Well, I know of a celebrity who did not pay their homeowner's insurance, but it would be unprofessional to name them.

I now work for an insurance software company, and there are few interesting stories there.
posted by kevinbelt at 5:04 PM on July 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

If you don't mind off-the-wall depictions you might enjoy The Adjuster a film by Atom Egoyan.
posted by jessamyn at 6:37 PM on July 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

If the salvage industry counts, High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace

"The insurers of a disabled ship with valuable cargo will offer from 10 to 70 percent of the value of the ship and its cargo to anyone who can save it. If the salvage effort fails, they don't pay a dime. "
posted by fings at 10:27 PM on July 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Kinsey Milhone (lead character in Sue Grafton's alphabet books) is a private investigator and in the earlier books (up to half way maybe?) she does investigations for a local insurance company. E is for Evidence is one where it is the main story but there are often side stories where she is documenting evidence for the insurance company, such as taking photos of someone who claimed a workplace injury but is hefting large objects around.
posted by kitten magic at 8:05 PM on July 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I work for a large property-casualty insurer, but my day to day work is not that exciting (at least from the outside) as it's mostly analyzing lots of numbers. However, I do work in the excess and specialty space, which means the lines of business are always really interesting - aviation (like insuring large airlines), fine art, hull and marine (think both ships and "inland" marine - transportation of goods by trucks), catastrophic property coverage etc. Your best bet would be to look at specialist underwriting jobs - for example, if you were underwriting construction for the MTA or the MBTA, you would probably get to go inspect the tunnels they were building etc.

Peacheater, where might I learn more about excess and specialty/specialist underwriting?
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 9:17 PM on July 10, 2016

I'm sure this is not what you are looking for, but I immediately thought of the Super Human Insurance Agent.
posted by wile e at 12:01 PM on July 11, 2016

Clyde Mnestra, I'm honestly trying to think of a good answer to your question and am feeling a bit stumped - there don't seem to be that many things written about the space that are not for an insider audience. However you could do worse than to start with the Lloyd's of London Wikipedia page and follow it down the rabbit hole. I also found a really interesting looking book about the Lloyd's crisis of the 1990s and it's restructuring after that, but I have obviously not read it.
posted by peacheater at 1:02 PM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Here is the thing. I work in a company in the insurance industry. We deal with brokers and we deal with carriers and Medicare. Much as it might be interesting for you, I can't sent you a recording of a teleconference (borrrring), but I think I can scrape some lines out of email so that they are non-identifiable. Keep an eye on your MeFi mailbox.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:50 PM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Great suggestions, all. Particularly appreciate those of you who took the extra time to look around for me or send mail -- I will aspire to do likewise!
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 4:04 PM on July 13, 2016