Is insurance a good career path for lawyers?

Insurance leaders are making the case for recent law school graduates to choose the P&C claims workforce over private law practices. 

“Generally, what happens is people enter the private practice legal profession, and then eventually migrate into an internal [insurance] role,” Cheri Trites-Versluis, chief claims officer of Vault Insurance, said during a recent Reuters webinar. “I think there’s an incredible opportunity for us to go and start migrating directly from law school.”

New law professionals are able to learn the same law skills through insurance, said panellists at Reuters’ Empowering Women in Claims Through Inclusivity, Technology & Leadership webinar. 

“Number one, it all starts with the policy, which is a contract, right?” says Dana Applegate, SVP of claims at Coaction Specialty Insurance. “Every [law student] is taking a contract class at some point. So, right out of the gate, you’re engaged in that.” 

Beyond contracts, legal skills can be learned from the ground up within the claims practice. 

“They’re embedded within claims,” says Trites-Versluis. “They’re typically interpreting contracts, and they’re getting to execute legal research. 

“They’re getting to focus on their legal writing skills and writing coverage opinions and letters to insureds,” she said. “They’re getting to engage in large loss meetings where they’re explaining to middle and senior level leaders what the coverage was. They’re working with underwriting to understand intent.” 

Claims isn’t the only open door for insurance law professionals. 

“There’s so many more avenues that you can utilize your law degree with — whether it’s leadership, whether it’s coverage counsel, whether it’s staff counsel, whether it’s general counsel; you can go anywhere,” said Barbara Brown, VP chief claims officer at Grange Insurance. “The door just opens up, because you can utilize that skillset in any part of our industry.” 

Insurance lawyers can also be a part of the teams that develop new products, like underwriting. 

“Sometimes, they’re working with the rating actuarial team; they’re developing the language that’s going to be interpreted by courts,” said Trites-Versluis. 

Balancing act 

Perhaps the biggest draw for law professionals to join the insurance industry is the more forgiving workday.  

“I was one of those law school graduates who went into insurance shortly after graduation, after passing the bar,” said Michelle Watson, chief legal officer at Germania Insurance. “After clerking for different areas, [and doing] litigation on the judicial side, I knew what those hours entailed, and wanted to get more of that work-life balance.” 

When she entered the insurance workforce, Watson started in claims litigation. “That opened up so many avenues because there were opportunities to work on pretrial matters, class action, mass actions, regulatory matters — It was a plethora of different legal ventures that I was able to be involved in.” 

Applegate, who worked as a paralegal at a law firm before transitioning to an insurance claims job, said most people exit law school assuming they’re going to make a lot of money, but end up paying for that in the form of long workdays.  

“Certainly, for the first couple of years out of law school, I would say for most people, it’s not that glamorous; It’s a lot of billable hours.” 

Brown says her firm has had success using work-life balance to entice young law professionals into the industry.  

“I’ve been able to attract some really tough talent from firms, because I can say, ‘Hey, you’re not going to miss your…birthday,” she said. “That balance is one of the selling points, especially with young people coming in, [when they realize] they’re not going to give that up.” 

For some law professionals, that transition into insurance quickly proves its worth.

“You get to do what you went to law school to do, which is practice law,” said Trites-Versluis. “I’ve found that when I’ve recruited and built these teams, people are so happy and they wish that they had made the transition to in-house sooner, because now they have a work-life balance that’s different from what they experienced in private practice.”