Budget cutbacks for both public and private entities limiting travel and funding for risk management education have not stifled creative thinking when it comes to program development, online and otherwise, according to experts in the field.
Organizations say they are having more requests for online courses, while risk managers are eager to obtain or complete designations to give them a competitive edge in a tough job market--with some taking courses at their own expense.
Priscilla Oehlert, vice president of risk management programs at The National Alliance for Insurance Education and Research in Austin, Texas, said that while in some cases the numbers are lower than in the past, "nevertheless, continuing education and professional development is still a priority with a lot of participants."
"I've also had a few participants come up and say they're taking the designation because they're looking for a career change--'How do I get into risk management?' I didn't have that question before," she added.
Participants also have indicated that designations can help them keep their jobs or find new ones in a tough marketplace.
"The designation puts them a step higher than a peer that doesn't have it," she noted. "We've also seen that participants are paying for their registrations out of their own pockets."
Mike Hay, director of risk management at the National Alliance, where he manages the certification school, added that during challenging economic times like these, some risk managers are realizing that as resources become increasingly scarce, "it's more important than ever to be able to identify the potential for a loss and to try to mitigate that loss and certainly to fund that loss within your operational budgets, should it occur."
Because of this, he said risk managers "need to be more proactive than ever in the risk management profession in bad times. I think that's one reason our numbers are holding pretty firm, even in these times."
The National Alliance's Ms. Oehlert said her organization has more than 100,000 participants in its programs. Among its programs, she noted:
o The Certified Insurance Specialist Representative (CISR) program offers about 1,500 courses nationally.
o The Certified Risk Management (CRM) program offers 86 courses.
o The Certified School Risk Management (CSRM) program has 92 courses.
o The Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) program offers 318 courses.
Other programs are offered as well, she said.
Mr. Hay added that the National Alliance certification school works with both public and private entities, and is fielding requests for courses from brokers, corporate risk managers and school risk managers.
He pointed out that more designations are now being done online.
"We implemented all of the CSRM classes online this year, and we're seeing a steady and significant growth in participation for the online classes," he said. "Students are using the online courses to accelerate receiving a designation, or as a means to reduce the amount of travel necessary."
He added that the National Alliance is also seeing an increase in the number of webinars requested. "I'm about to talk to brokers about what the CSRM program means to them in working with their school clients. There are more than 15,000 school districts in the U.S.," he noted.
Michael McDonald, director of professional development for the Risk and Insurance Management Society, as well as vice president of risk management at Quality Distribution Inc. in Tampa, Fla., said that although company travel budgets have been "decimated" because of the economy, risk managers are "still looking to education, because they still want to advance in the profession."
Mr. McDonald said the down economy began impacting educational offerings from RIMS in mid-2008, and became progressively worse into 2009.
At the RIMS national conference last April in Orlando, he noted, "Although we did better than anticipated, there was still a significant reduction in the number of attendees." He said the trend has been evident in other educational offerings as well, such as the two-day, on-site professional courses--the primary courses offered for credit, which go toward the RIMS Fellow degree.
While not abandoned, these two-day courses, he explained, have been downsized in favor of webinars, which have become popular. For example, he said, a RIMS webinar on pandemics last September drew more than 500 participants. The same month, he added, another webinar on financing employee benefits liability in a captive drew more than 400 registrants.
Mr. McDonald said RIMS also has come out with other educational offerings leveraging technology. One is the "course-cast," which runs 90 minutes, versus the one-hour webinars.
"With the course-cast, not only can you hear and see on your computer screen, but it's interactive," he said, noting that he moderated the first course-cast in October, on the topic of casualty claims administration.
Participants can send questions while going through the presentation, and they also can be polled.
For example, he said, when given a case study, participants can vote on what they believe is the correct answer on what actions to take. (The course-casts are currently being offered for continuing education purposes but not for credit, he said.)
Mr. McDonald also noted that RIMS can custom-design courses based on a company's specific needs.
For example, a RIMS member company recently asked the association to teach a claims refresher course to all their in-house claims adjusters, he said.
Another step RIMS has taken is to beef up its for-credit online course offerings. An advantage to online training is they can be accessed anywhere in the world. "We have people from Asia, Europe and South Africa, and with the Internet you can educate people on a global scale," he said.
RIMS has 86 chapters, he noted, which give educational presentations at monthly meetings--opening up more educational opportunities. RIMS also has regional conferences in Florida and Canada, as well as its national conference, which has hundreds of educational offerings.
But while RIMS wants to move toward wider use of technology and online courses, "our surveys indicate there is still a great demand for face-to-face interaction," Mr. McDonald said, noting that in the past 60 days "we've started seeing more people come back for the face-to-face courses, so we're feeling better about 2010."
At one time, 25- or 30 people would sign up for two-day development courses, but that number had dwindled to four or five, he said. Now, however, 15 will sign up, "which is much better than it has been with four- or five people, so that's encouraging."
From a budgetary perspective, he said, "we're still being cautious, but we exist to provide education. We're guardedly optimistic about 2010."
Mary Stewart, director of research and development with the Fairfax, Va.-based Public Entity Risk Institute, said the effect of the economy on PERI's education programs is "probably in the positive, because we don't do on-site trainings. We also don't do conferences."
She said the organization has been gearing up for the new market realities, recently changing its Web program so that courses previously hosted by an outside provider are now handled in-house by PERI. This way, she said, the substantial savings can be passed directly to those taking the courses.
Ms. Stewart said PERI has had interest from different states, where several groups are trying to meet their certification requirements. "So we've been asked to help format or change the courses we have to meet those requirements. We're looking at that--it's a large area we weren't focusing on before, but now it makes sense."
As well as getting certified, she said, those who already have certification still take continuing education programs.
"It's not just risk managers," she noted. "Elected officials are one of the other big groups affected by having to meet their certifications and can't travel for it. It's a large area for us that we weren't planning on."
Ms. Stewart added that those organizations that "can put any kind of risk management or safety training into a part of their certification, those are the groups that are already approaching us."
If PERI had remained with a hosting site, she added, "it would have cost us an arm and a leg to try and do this. Now that we can do our own, it's very easy for us to help governments with their own programs or pools with programs for their members."
The new platform, she said, will save money for PERI, with those savings passed on to the governments that participate. "We can put up one course for them and let everybody see it online, and they don't have to go out and buy their own learning system to be able to do it," she said.
Because so many in the public sector aren't being allowed to travel "in any way, shape or form," one trend she is seeing is jurisdictions joining forces to host training programs on risk management issues such as the environment and health.
In Northern Virginia, for example, several school districts teamed up, bringing in experts from the Centers for Disease Control. "Instead of having to go to a conference, it became a regional piece," she said, which they needed to do because of the threat to public health from the H1N1 virus. "It makes all the sense in the world."
