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Job Title: Property Loss Prevention Engineer Manager
Type of Company: My company is a Fortune 100 insurance corporation providing all types of insurance products world-wide.
Education: BA, Mathematics, St. Vincent College •• (Erie, PA) •• BS, Petroleum & Natural Gas Engineering, Pennsylvania State University •• Professional Engineer designation in Safety from the State of Massachusetts
Previous Experience: I worked as a field engineer for a large insurance company before moving into a technical resource position followed by management positions with the same company.
Job Tasks: I am an engineering manager for a large insurance company. I work in the commercial property branch which provides insurance that will rebuild a facility in the event of fire, hurricane or other physical damage.
My primary responsibilities are administrative, translating the specific goals of my company into day-to-day activities and measurable step-by-step goals that both the field and technical engineers can tie into their day-to-day activities. In other words, I show them how what they do every day effects the health of the company and how they can help the company to succeed. For instance, making sure that a fire sprinkler system will actually protect the storage area (where a fire is often most severe) of a plastics company can prevent a small fire from growing into a large one.
In addition, I interact with producers (insurance brokers who most companies use to find the best insurance coverage at the most economical value) and the corporate level of our insured customers to both market our engineering expertise and to explain why completing a particular engineering recommendation will protect them from losses and keep their insurance costs down. This requires selling skills and being able to contrast the costs of doing something with the benefits to be derived from it.
On a typical day I will discuss recommendations with engineers that are designed to protect buildings from fire, keep a business running after a hurricane or keep a roof in good condition. I will take the best examples and spread them throughout my group across the country so that everyone benefits from new knowledge. I will take the financial metrics which require a solid grounding in math and translate them into the actions that we take with each individual policyholder (insurance customer) and identify and communicate any areas where we can help.
Best and Worst Parts of the Job: The best part of the job is going to various manufacturing facilities to learn how products are made and to discuss recommendations that will keep the facility operating in the event of a fire. For instance, any plastic product like a cell phone casing is manufactured using a molder operated by hydraulics. Hydraulic oil is combustible, but "interlocks" -- devices that shut the equipment down if there is an oil leak -- haven't always been installed around the molders. Teaching the customer about the importance of these and having them installed is very rewarding.
The worst part of my job is trying to explain a corporate directive that appears to make little sense at the field level even though there are usually solid reasons for the change.
Job Tips:
1. Start your career by being a field engineer visiting various facilities and learning how to protect them. It is fun and interesting and everything else is based on this.
2. Ask questions. If you don't understand how something is done or why a particular procedure is in place, ask why; but be willing to listen to the answer.
3. If there is a problem, go see it for yourself. The experience of seeing is often more educational than simply reading other peoples reports.
4. Have fun and be optimistic. Be professional in your approach and in your results, but have fun. Being positive will raise the spirits of those around you and improves the workplace. It is also noticed.
Additional Thoughts: The biggest surprise for people is that insurance companies use engineers with various backgrounds to help understand what they are insuring. There is an engineering career in insurance that not only provides a long career with advancement but also provides the option of going into underwriting (the people who actually determine who the company wants to insure and at what terms and conditions) or into claims where one sees the damage from a fire or storm and follows through on the policy promise of restoring the facility to operation.
The most important quality for success is judgement -- the ability to weigh the options, keeping your emotions out of it and base a decision on the facts. Often you don't know all of the facts but a decision still has to be made and that requires experience, knowledge and the ability to weigh options.
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