My name is Rose-Marie Orpen and I started with Crown Life Insurance Company about two and half years ago in April of '95. The job title that I am currently working in is Group Medical Underwriting. It was a career move from nursing looking for a full-time job in Regina which at that time wasn't available and I wasn't aware of all the different aspects that Crown Life had to offer the nursing industry. There's a number of different areas within the insurance industry that requires a nursing background or knowledge of medical insurance such as long term disability, life claims, individual life insurance and group life insurance which deals with a lot of doctors and that kind of thing as well.

I have a nursing degree. They recommend a strong industry background as well which I learned because I had the nursing industry. Nursing would be a good background or if you are already in the insurance industry and you wanted to get into group medical underwriting, the best way to do it would be look at maybe taking a degree, or like a program in medical terminology. That kind of course is offered through the U. of R. and there's been a couple of nurses or people who have worked in the industry who have gone into group medical underwriting who don't have the nursing background but have a strong insurance background as well.

A personal characteristic that is really necessary in this type of business is a strong team component. You have to be able to work well with individuals. You have to be very calm. You can't be aggressive when dealing with people on the phone. I mean they're talking about their life insurance and that's very important to them. You have to be empathetic, understanding and you also have to try and find solutions as opposed to placing guilt in other areas so it's a matter of looking at, "Let's make this thing work and if there's a problem, let's look at it. Let's find a solution and let's correct the problem." We work very closely as a team. We have five underwriters plus an administrative assistant and a supervisor. It's a lot of, "Let's look at this. What would you guys do with this issue?" You're constantly looking at streamlining processes so you're constantly listening to what other people do in certain situations. So, it's a lot of meetings and a lot of talking between the individuals. A positive attitude in the job is very necessary in the type of work we do. Your work environment can often impact on how well you do your job.

Adapting to the change with group medical underwriting has been a constant with our area at this point. In the last couple of years, we've gone through a number of changes. We used to do everything manually and by manually I mean we used to get a paper application. We used to look at the application and then we'd have to write on a routing sheet what our decisions were. Then we'd have to send another form to typing to get the letter done. The way it's going now is we've been able to switch everything from the paper factory up into computer. So we've got programs that automatically general letters for us now. When people call in we can call up their application on a computer and tell them exactly what's happened with it. It's just really streamlined the process. We're constantly looking at increasing that streamlined ability so that we're giving more efficient and quicker service to the people who really want it.

My typical day changes from day to day. Generally start out, we work, in group medical underwriting we work a lot with direct marketing. I said you get those forms and it usually has like six questions on it. You answer those questions. You fill out that form and you send it in. I said I get that form and that's what my typical day is. I get hundreds of those and I look at hundreds of those forms and make decisions based on information that they've provided. That'll take up, probably, oh, half my day. The other half of my day, we also, Crown Life Insurance also underwrites for small companies, triple crown groups as well. So we also underwrite for smaller companies and we underwrite the whole group. So that will take up about a third of my day. The other third of my day is dealing with other areas of the company client services, who have issues dealing with their brokers, looking for statuses on different things. Applicants calling in having questions or concerns about questionnaires that were sent out to them or the insurance that they have. Just leading people to where they need to be to get the right answers that they need. That's a typical day on a good day.

The opportunities this job could offer, any individual working in group medical underwriting is a stepping stone to other areas of life insurance. You could move to the health department. The long term disability department. It gives you such a broad knowledge.

I would have to say the most challenging part of my job is keeping on top of all the different medical conditions and how they've progressed and how out thinking has progressed about how those medical conditions impact on the long-term physiology of an individual. I mean even in the last six months we're constantly getting medical journals to read. I think that would be the most challenging part of this whole job.

The most satisfying part of the job is working with the individuals I work with. It's a real joy to come to work. You don't feel stressed. And if you do feel stressed, you know that you have support there to help you through it. Somebody's always saying like "Let me help you with that problem." or ""Let me take some of this work from you." And it's vice-versa. I mean It's not a one-way street and I think that's the most satisfying part of my whole job.

If someone was interested in getting into group medical underwriting, I would suggest that they probably don't necessarily have to get a nursing education but to get a general feel for the insurance industry, have a strong background in the insurance industry, be aware of all the different products that are available and which area you would choose to focus in. Then I would encourage them strongly to get a medical terminology course and there's a number of those available that you can do through correspondence or at any university and that would give them a strong base to start working. You have to be aware of the conditions that are out there and you do have to read a lot of doctor's reports. You have to understand doctor's reports and what the implications are. If somebody writes certain terminology down, it would be very necessary to take some education in that.