Meet Jess Harris, Vice President – Senior Casualty Specialist, Life Science & Technology
Please tell us about your career journey and your path to Sompo.
My journey to Sompo included stops with great carriers including Chubb, Travelers, Royal & SunAlliance and Hartford, each of whom gave me a gift I used at the next stop. When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up because I liked helping people. I was premed in college and later changed my major to biology. When I graduated, a recruiter told me about an opening with an insurance company looking for someone with a degree in science. I didn’t fully understand what a Loss Control Representative was when I started my career, but soon realized I really was helping people. In Risk Control, we help workers go home safely to their families and help businesses stay profitable. I feel very fortunate to be living my dream.
Helping to start up Sompo’s Risk Control Life Sciences and Technology industry verticals was an opportunity I could not pass up. I’m using my science background. I’m helping underwriters and my Risk Control coworkers to write profitable business. I’m helping to build the brand. And most of all, I’m providing our Life Science and Technology clients with timely information and valuable resources. It’s been an amazing experience.
What advice do you have for prospective Sompo candidates?
Be yourself. Everyone else is taken. Sompo is such a diverse group of talented people. There’s an entrepreneurial spirit and everyone here wants to help each other be successful.
Tell us about an initiative at SI that you are most excited for in 2022.
We have several great initiatives this year, but I’m super excited about our Global Risk Control form revisions which we are in the process of rolling out now. After working with several carriers, I have a unique perspective on how to gather meaningful and succinct information to help our underwriters and Risk Control team members limit report-writing time. Eliminating redundant reporting and providing more “white-glove service” is what differentiates Sompo’s approach to Risk Control.
What is your idea of a perfect day outside of the office?
A perfect day for me is spent offshore fishing with our sons and their families. We would leave the dock at sunrise, catch the morning bite, then go diving at Looe Key. We would catch, clean, cook mahi mahi, a wahoo or maybe even a tuna and enjoy a Jess-a-rita while we grilled fresh fish and enjoyed the sunset. Now that’s a perfect day