When Fate Meets Passion: Choosing Insurance

A lot of people ask me how I chose what I do. 15-year-old Elisa worried more about finding something she could do for the rest of her life and be happy with it than she did about prom dates or turning in her homework on time. I wanted more than anything to have my whole life planned out so I could start living it. Even at 24, I know how impossible that task was, but a past me was engulfed with it. My high school counselor actually handed me a career book on one of our numerous conversations about the topic. Thank goodness, actuarial science starts with A.

I’m kidding, but he did really give me a copy of “A to Z of careers and jobs”. He also sent me home with a printed copy of Maryville University’s web page on actuarial science. It was like fate had emailed him that day asking if he knew any students interested in actuarial science.

I’ve always loved math (said no one ever, except me). I love that numbers spoke to me and that you know whether or not you were right. I like that there was some kind of art to a really long complicated equation. But I also fantasized of blazers and fun office stationery and corporate life; my mom had lots of photos from when she worked in corporate America and I always saw myself in one of her old pant suits, taking on the world. Actuarial science combined my passion with my vision of me as an adult; plus, as a high schooler in too many extracurriculars and AP classes, I read that actuaries have a low stress job and that appealed to me.

While I did choose to be an actuary, the insurance industry chose me. Over 60% of actuaries work in the insurance industry. While the vast majority of the rest of them work in the finance. From my first class, insurance and actuaries were put in the same sentence. We learned about the different aspects of insurance, the big insurance companies in St. Louis came to visit us, the actuarial science career fair was all insurance companies. So, like salmon in the spring, I followed the path that was carved for me and when I graduated, I joined the insurance industry and didn’t look back. What I didn’t know was that I’d fall in love with insurance.