- Company News
- No comments
Join us here for our Winter Intern Update from Katie Blanchard and Gray Flanagan! Katie and Gray will be chronicling their winter with The Safegard Group by detailing what they have learned and their experience with our company in this Winter Intern Update.
Winter Intern Update #1
My first two weeks working with The Safegard Group have included my working on several short-term projects, getting acclimated with the office environment, and learning the basics of the insurance industry.
The Safegard Group uses a program called Vertafore AMS360, which recently came out with a very convenient mobile app that allows users to access imperative information quickly and while away from the office. For my first project, I created a short presentation with step-by-step instructions on how to use the app, Vertafore Mobile. This will be used as a reference for our employees to learn how to use the app and to come back to as they have any questions about it.
For my second project, I redesigned the presentation that is used by our producers to introduce new clients to our Captive Program. A Captive is an insurance company that provides insurance to and is controlled by its owners. Members of the Safegard production team present this policy proposal to potential clients. Through updating and redesigning the presentation, I was able to learn about what a Captive is, how it works, and why it is beneficial for clients. I also had to think about what the presentation would look like from a potential client’s perspective and make sure to present the information in an attractive and clear format.
Next, I worked on updating coverage and executive summaries for several clients in the Commercial Lines department, focusing on replacing old premium tables with embedded excel tables that will allow these forms to be updated more efficiently in the future. This introduced me to the different types of policies commercial lines might require and showed me how these policies are presented to clients.
Most recently, I created a template for our company meeting presentations that matches the Captive presentation format so, moving forward, presentations will look uniform.
Throughout my first two weeks, I have had the opportunity to sit down with the head of almost every department at Safegard. This was very helpful in learning about their respective roles and about what working in each department involves. I met with Jen Ackerman, Commercial Lines Operations Manager and Account Manager who taught me about the team set-up in Commercial Lines. Commercial Lines is Safegard’s largest department, and although some teams work with all very similar types of clients, I got to speak with people like Bill Salmon, who’s book of business includes a wide variety of companies that he and his team must find the best policies for. I learned about the Personal and Select Accounts department from Andy Pillion, and we discussed the range of clients he and his team work with along with how these clients differ from Commercial Lines. I also sat down with Bob McFarland to learn about the Benefits department and what it deals with on a day to day basis, noting that it works with items not always necessarily related to insurance, but important to employee benefits such as health savings or flexible spending accounts. Each one of these meetings ended with an offer to stop by any time with questions- a point that his/her office was an open door if I needed any help, which showed a lot about the community here at Safegard.
Although I started my time with the Safegard during the busy time of the holiday season, I have already learned a lot about the environment here. It is one of respect, diligence, and enjoyment. I was lucky enough to be taken out to lunch twice to connect more with the people I will be working with over the next month, first with the Operations team that includes Mike Hermansen, Director of Operations, Gray Flanagan, another winter intern, and myself. During the second lunch, I got to learn about keeping up relations with all our carriers from Apurva Upadhyay with the company of Jen Ackerman as well.
I have so enjoyed my first two weeks with Safegard and am looking forward to delving deeper into learning the insurance business in the coming weeks.
About Katie Blanchard
Katie Blanchard recently joined the Safegard team as a Winter Intern, where she will be spending weeks at a time working on special projects for the company and learning the ins and outs of the Commercial, Personal, Employee Benefits, and Claims Departments.
Katie previously interned with a non-profit in Wilmington, DE named Strive and ran their finances.
A senior at University of Delaware, Katie is studying math and economics with a minor in business administration. Katie has been tutoring math and functioned as a classroom assistant at University of Delaware for three years; she also participated in a community rebuilding trip with the National Relief Network in Leesburg, FL in April 2015. Katie enjoys running and is Vice President of the Club Track and Cross Country Team at University of Delaware. This time last year, Katie was studying abroad in Granada, Spain.
Thank you for reading this week’s Winter Intern Update!