Bow Valley College Insurance Career Support

The Cause

Bow Valley College (BVC) provides an Insurance and Risk Management Major Diploma for Domestic and International students in Canada. The program is growing in size and started at 4 students and now has 15 students in the program. The program allows the students to graduate with up to 7 of the 10 courses required to obtain their Chartered Insurance Professional (CIP) designation. Once these student graduate nearly 100% of the students are hired by the insurance industry since they are well educated, motivated and have 7 of the 10 education requirements for the CIP.

There is a separate Insurance Institute of Canada (IIC) exam that must be completed after each course is completed. This exam costs about $200 per student (BVC negotiated a reduced rate) and needs to be paid at registration. This extra exam fee is a major barrier for the students and we found that some would not register due to a lack of personal funding. in effect they would have to take the course again to get credit for their CIP designation. This is a bigger barrier for international students.

When the program was small - 4 students - BVC was able to find a funder that was able to pay for most of the exams. Now that the program is growing there is a deficit in the funding.

The suggestions is to provide exam funding for International students in the the Bow Valley College Insurance and Risk Program. If we were able to have both domestic and International student exams paid for - that would be a very nice addition.

The International student population at BVC includes young women and men making the trip on their own to Canada, single mothers trying to juggle a new 24 hour per week maximum for allowable work hours, and many other stories.

Supporting new insurance and risk students gives back to the community since they all get jobs after graduation with insurers, brokers and adjusting firms. Many of the alumni now come back to the school and tell their stories about how they navigated school, networking with industry, and getting their first job.

As an immigrant myself, from Poland, I remember some of the barriers to education and a good job. As a Risk Manager (Risk Management 101) and Instructor (BVC) I see the value of in supporting good education and its outcomes.

I hope you are able to help fund the entire program or even one or two of the classes on a continuous basis.

Sincerely,

Darius Delon, MBA FCIP CRIM RIMS-CRMP

Who Will it Benefit?

BVC Insurance and Risk Management (I&RM) students would benefit their careers by obtaining their CIP designation now, instead of later, and accelerating their education and career growth in Southern Alberta.

Hopefully both domestic and international students would be able to apply for the exam funding.

The BVC I&RM international student pool has many stories of students wanting to make a better life for themselves and their children. Many of the program students come from: Mexico, Columbia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brazil, Argentina, Africa, Eastern Europe and other countries.