On January 5, 2025, a group of St. Thomas students and two professors took off from MSP on the start of a three-week adventure in London learning the basics about the global risk management and insurance industry. After 2 days of classes on campus, students enrolled in the J-term Introduction to Risk Management and Insurance course immersed themselves in the sights, sounds, culture and global insurance ecosystem that is London!

The students, representing a diverse group of majors from St. Thomas – Business, Accounting, Economics, Actuarial Science, Management, and more – spent a whirlwind three weeks in a mixture of classroom lectures and site visits to a variety of companies and locales. These site visits included Travelers, an in-depth look at catastrophe modeling and fraud detection at Verisk, a morning at Apollo syndicate (co-founded by Minnesota’s own Jim Hayes, who was inducted in the innaugural class of the Minnesota Insurance Hall of Fame on UST’s campus in the fall of 2024), and time with Holborn Re’s London-partners AHJ. In addition, a London-located alum supplemented the classroom experience with his insider’s view of what reinsurance brokering looks like in the London market. And, of course, the highlight of the site visits was a small-group tour of Lloyds of London, the global heart of the industry!

Outside of the classroom and site visits, students found plenty of ways to immerse themselves in London and beyond with premier league soccer (ok, football) matches, walking tours, museums, and exploring one of the world’s great cities! During their free weekends, various students managed to find their ways to Paris, Berlin, and Dublin. More importantly, they also managed to find their ways back to London by Monday morning class time!

The University of St. Thomas offers this introductory RM&I class on campus each semester and strives to offer it in London every other January. We are always looking for site visit partners and classroom guests, so if you or your company have a London presence and might want to help, please drop Dr. Mike Axtell an email at mike.axtell@stthomas.edu