If ever there was a career in the insurance industry that you thought would never disappear it had to be that of an underwriter. After all, what is insurance other than examining risk and determining whether that risk is worthy of issuing a policy.

So it was interesting to read a Yahoo.com article on high-paying careers with no future and learning insurance underwriter was third on the list. The article is based on numbers provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Louise Tutelian writes: "Blame it on the software. New programs allow underwriters to take on three times as much work as in the past, collapsing the need for more hires. As a result, the BLS projects that the number of people employed in the field will decline by four percent, or 4,300 jobs, by 2018. '[The underwriter] just punches in data, and it spits out, say, whether a potential homebuyer is approved or not,' says Henry Kasper, supervisory economist at the BLS. Growth in the insurance industry isn't exactly exploding either, further undermining the career outlook for underwriters."

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