Rob Hoyt, Moore Chairholder of Insurance and Department Head, shares a laugh with his students.

The Terry College’s risk management-insurance program traces its formal beginning to 1965, and in a short period of time it has grown into the largest undergraduate program of its kind in the U.S. It is also one of the very best, having risen to the No. 2 insurance program in the country behind Wharton in current rankings from U.S. News & World Report.

Our average graduating class numbers roughly 120, and those newly minted Terry alums are equipped to take a variety of positions in the industry, such as insurance adjusters and underwriters, insurance brokers and agents, insurance underwriters, personal financial planners, as well as analysts in corporate management.

A partial list of companies whose risk management departments are staffed by Terry graduates includes Turner Broadcasting, HBO, Hilton Hotels, McDonald’s, SunTrust, Sears, Delta Airlines, Honda, Levi Strauss, Dow Corning, M&M Mars, The Home Depot, UPS, Honeywell, Pepsi, and Wendy’s/Arby’s. On the 2010 Bulldog 100 list, which ranks the top UGA alumni owned and/or operated businesses in terms of revenue growth over a three-year period, Terry College alumni occupied half of the 100 slots with Risk Management represented by Fred Rich (Cooper-Atlanta Transportation/No. 10), Monica Allen (Allen Professional Graphics Group/No. 28), and Dan Amos (Aflac/No. 77). Amos, who is CEO of Aflac, was the keynote speaker at both the inaugural Bulldog 100 Gala and the Terry College’s inaugural Graduation Convocation. In addition, two RMI graduates, Holly Meidl and Chelley Schaper, were selected as two of Business Insurance magazine’s “2008 Women to Watch.”

The annual Risk and Insurance Careers Day attracts more than 50 employers to campus. The RMI program also produces approximately 20 MBA graduates per year, and it has one of the largest PhD programs in the U.S. producing future risk management and insurance professors.

The program’s success has been bolstered by a strong relationship with its industry partners. The 2008 Risk and Insurance Careers Day attracted 68 employers to campus, and the annual invitational insurance managers seminar brings together dozens of industry executives who meet with Terry RMI majors to discuss current topics of interest in the field. The program maintains a very active job placement service for new alums — who, as they progress through theirs careers, are fiercely loyal in making sure that the next generation of RMI graduates is successful in finding positions in the industry.

Employers say they value Terry graduates for their strong analytic skills and for their ability to apply those skills in real business applications. We develop those capabilities in our students through an extensive internship program that typically involves more than 100 students and as many as 80 students and as many as 60 companies, as well as through applied group and individual projects in the classroom. Terry students are in such demand that the RMI department can require that internships be paid. This typically results in our students being asked to do real work on their internship assignments, where they learn critical professional skills before they even graduate. To get your company involved in creating internships for Terry students, go to the Hire Terry website.

RMI’s energetic, impassioned faculty members are adept at making textbook material come alive, and to supplement the classroom experience Terry faculty invite practitioners to serve as guest speakers, thus bringing real-world experiences and perspective to classroom lessons. Risk management faculty also help advance their academic field by conducting important research, a recent example being research conducted by Rob Hoyt and Jim Hilliard, who determined that, in the case of natural disasters, catastrophic securitization is a viable alternative to insurance.

Academic advisers say Terry’s risk management-insurance students are typically bright, pragmatic, and ambitious individuals with outgoing personalities. Many employers comment that Terry’s RMI graduates really "hit the ground running!"