Skip to Content

Darla Moore School of Business

B.S. Degree

The risk management and insurance major focuses on developing decision-making skills in the face of uncertainty and providing an understanding of risk transfer markets. The Moore School’s risk management and insurance program is consistently regarded as one of the nation’s best and is recognized as a Global Center for Insurance Excellence by the International Insurance Society.

A Challenging and Rewarding Career Choice

The risk management and insurance major aims to produce graduates with analytical and qualitative decision-making skills that allow them to make rational, objective decisions under uncertainty. Therefore, we provide students with frameworks, models, analytical skills and a holistic, enterprise-wide perspective of risk. These concepts are applied and illustrated using the insurance industry, for which risk management is fundamental.

Risk management is a growing field as companies face more — and more varied — challenges around the globe. Organizations of all kinds are placing greater emphasis on identifying and managing risk and creating demand for risk managers across a wide range of industry sectors.

Increasingly, many organizations are taking a proactive and holistic approach to risk that considers a wide range of risks, including price volatility, cyber security, reputation damage, natural disasters and pandemics. This approach, known as enterprise risk management, requires creative, strategic thinking. The Moore School’s risk management faculty take an enterprise risk management approach in their own scholarship and are committed to training students in this approach as well.

The risk management and insurance major:

  • Teaches disciplined methods for making decisions under uncertainty.
  • Provides a broad framework for evaluating all types of risk.
  • Introduces risk management as a rational method for identifying and treating all types of risk.
  • Emphasizes risk assessment as core element of business literacy.
  • Examines risk transfer markets, including both insurance markets and derivative markets.
  • Applies concepts from finance, probability and statistics to measure risk and to make better risk decisions.
  • Engages students in the discussion of key public policy issues involving risk.
  • Deepens appreciation of the difficult trade-offs that are required to resolve public policy issues.
  • Positions risk management as a powerful methodology.
  • Illustrates the power of language, tools and concepts to manage in a complex world.
  • Challenges students to develop their ability to think critically.

Careers in Risk Management and Insurance

Graduates with degrees in risk management and insurance are employed as:

  • Underwriters in life, health or property and casualty insurance industries.
  • Insurance brokers.
  • Investment analysts.
  • Risk managers for insurance companies and multinational corporations.
  • Marketing representatives for companies in life, health or property and casualty insurance industries.

Companies and organizations that hire Moore School risk management and insurance majors include Accenture, Aetna, AIG, A. J. Gallagher, AllRisks, Amica, Aon, AutoOwners, Bank of America, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Chubb, Citigroup Inc., CNA, Colonial Life, Deloitte, Fifth Third Bank, GE Capital, Freddie Mac, Geico, Liberty Mutual Group, Markel, Marsh, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Morgan Stanley, Principal Financial Group, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Siemens, South Carolina Department of Insurance, Standard and Poor’s, State Farm Insurance, SunTrust, Time Warner, Travelers, Unum, USAA, Vanguard, Wells Fargo and Willis.

The risk management and insurance major is a good fit for people who:

  • Are good at problem-solving.
  • Want to be good at making decisions when there is uncertainty about the outcome.
  • Enjoy working collaboratively with people across a range of functional areas.

Curriculum

Degree requirements: 122 hours

Major requirements: 61 hours

Students must take the following two courses:

Students must choose three of the following courses:

All majors are required to take Carolina Core classes to develop problem-solving skills and explore world cultures, history, languages and art. Business students also complete the Business Core Curriculum, which covers the basics for success in advanced business courses. Courses common to all programs include business communications, statistics, international business, accounting, economics, computer applications and business law.

Learn more »

1. CMW: Carolina Core Effective, Engaged and Persuasive Communication: Writing (6 hours)

Must be passed with a grade of "C" or higher.


ARP: Carolina Core Analytical Reasoning and Problem-Solving (6-7 hours)

Must be passed with a grade of "C" or higher.


SCI: Carolina Core Scientific Literacy (7 hours)

GFL: Global Citizenship and Multicultural Understanding: Foreign Language (0-6 hours)

Students shall demonstrate in one Foreign Language the ability to comprehend the topic and the main ideas in written and, with the exception of Latin and Ancient Greek, spoken texts on familiar subjects. This ability can be demonstrated by achieving a score of two or better on a USC foreign language test. Those failing to do so must satisfactorily complete equivalent study of foreign language at USC.  CC-GFL courses


GHS: Global Citizenship and Multicultural Understanding: Historical Thinking  CC-GHS courses


GSS: Carolina Core Global Citizenship and Multicultural Understanding: Social Sciences (3 hours)AIU: Carolina Core Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding (3 hours)  CC-GSS courses

AIU: Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding (0-33 hours)  CC-AIU courses

CMS: Effective, Engaged, and Persuasive Communication: Spoken Component* (0-3 hours) CC-CMS courses

INF: Information Literacy* (0-3 hours)  CC-INF courses

VSR: Values, Ethics and Social Responsibility* (0-3 hours)

*Course can be Stand Alone or Overlay — Overlay-approved courses offer students the option of meeting two Carolina Core components in a single course. A maximum of two overlays is allowed. The total Carolina Core credit hours must add up to a minimum of 31 hours. Some programs may have a higher number of minimum Carolina Core hours due to specified requirements.

The program requires 9 hours of course work with international content that may be completed through other degree requirements. Three hours must be taken from an approved list of courses offered by the Moore School of Business which contain international business or international economics content. The following course options can also be used to satisfy the 3 credit hours of this requirement: approved course work containing international business or international economics content, taken at a semester abroad program; an approved Maymester or summer overseas course containing international business or international economics content; an approved internship course in international business wherein a student would obtain discipline-related work experience in a foreign country; or an approved service-learning component.

Students may choose from one of the following options to complete the remaining 6-hour requirement:

Language:

Two language courses at the 200 level or above

or

Electives:

Two approved courses with international content taken either inside or outside the Moore School from a list available in the undergraduate office.

Minors (non-business) may be selected from a University-wide list of approved minors. The minor is normally a minimum of 18 hours of prescribed courses in one subject area. Minors are recognized on the transcript.

Cognates which consist of 4 related courses in a specific field. The cognate is intended to support the course work in the major. The cognate must consist of twelve (12) hours of courses at the advanced level, outside of but related to the major. Cognates do not earn an additional designation on the transcript.

Optional Business Analytics Concentration (12 hours) (*)

Risk Management and Insurance:
Required Course (three hours)

Choose nine hours from the list below:

*Consult with your academic adviser or department on courses recommended for individual majors. The analytics concentration must be taken in conjunction with another track in your major. The department may add additional electives to the Data Analytics concentration subject to the approval of the Data Analytics Committee.

Learning Outcomes

  • Students will understand and apply the processes for identifying risk and measuring risk, as well as the various methods for managing risk (e.g., mitigation, insurance, diversification and hedging).
  • Students will understand the conditions that hinder the trading/sharing of risk, including correlation in outcomes, moral hazard, adverse selection and transaction costs.
  • Students will understand and apply the models for pricing insurance products.
  • Students will understand the institutional context in which insurance is sold, including regulation, ownership structure and marketing channels.

Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.

©