This summer I have been working at HUB International Canada, an insurance brokerage as a Marketing intern with the Cyber Division. When I started my position, I quickly learnt that there is another meaning to the word, “marketing” for the world of insurance.
As an insurance broker would say, “marketing”, it doesn’t mean what it means to us as marketing students. To use it in a phrase from their perspective, “going to market” means the action for the broker to present the current client of focus to the market of potential insurance carriers. Brokers will share with them certain collected data points, metrics, and previous history and answer questions regarding their insurance expectations through several applications to them find the best carrier to cover that certain client. After being taken to market, the client can potentially have the option to pick from what’s available on the market based on their package. (the collection of the data points, metrics, applications etc) It is pretty different from what we’ve understood marketing during our classes.
So I then asked myself- what am I going to be doing as a marketing intern at this insurance brokerage? I certainly understood that I wouldn't be a part of the “going to market”/marketing I just learnt about.
The answer to that is in fact similar to what we’ve been learning in class, I was tasked with creating optimized materials to attract and ultimately sell a product. Over the summer, the product I was selling was cyber insurance, a product which I didn’t know about until this summer, offering me more opportunities to learn. My approach to many of the development processes was to, very simply, sell this product. Many methods were utilized and it has been incredibly fulfilling to see my projects and work being used in the team's operations.
I would love to share more about my work from this summer if anyone is interested, but the main point I would like to get across is to explore marketing positions in the, arguably, unconventional industries not previously considered. You may even consider the insurance industry in doing so, who knows!
Let me know what you guys think about this, I’m curious to learn what industries you would like to explore and maybe what you have learnt from exploring.
Written by: Alyssa Ber
Bachelor of Commerce - Marketing program (BMRK)