Underwriting: An underwriter holds a salaried position, working in a home or regional office. Underwriters make fundamental insurance decisions as to whether the company will insure a person or an organization.

Claims: A claims representative (also known as an adjuster) investigates claims against the company and negotiates settlement of those claims. Adjusters hold salaried positions, spending approximately equal amounts of time completing office tasks and meeting with claimants in the field.

Management: Insurance companies hire tens of thousands of clerical employees, mostly high school graduates. These employees need first-line supervisors, and such salaried positions provide excellent opportunities to move to higher management posts.

Sales: These are insurance agents who work in the field and are paid on commission. Sales provides the greatest financial opportunities, but it is challenging for a recent college graduate to have the poise, knowledge and maturity to sell insurance immediately after graduation. Entrepreneurs start their own insurance agencies.

Risk Management: Risk management is the systematic process of managing an organization's loss exposure to achieve its objectives in a manner consistent with public interests, human safety, environmental welfare, and the law. The risk manager is mostly a planner, promoter, and coordinator of the above process. Responsibility for implementation resides at the departmental level, because accidents, injuries, fires, thefts, defective products, violations of employee rights, and environmental pollution occur at the worksite and can best be prevented or reduced at that level. Such prevention will not occur, however, without the guidance of knowledgeable experts like risk managers and loss-control specialists.