QBE Insurance Reviews

Pros

Very financially sound company that allows you to develop and grow as a professional. As a large national and growing firm, the opportunities that give you to advance are limitless. They truly try to promote within and give internal candidates great opportunities.

Cons

Like in large company, they do have several internal protocols that sometimes slows things down.
The company does have some complex management structure so that tends to make things tough to get an immediate approval.

Advice to Senior Management

I would tell management to keep doing what they are doing. They appear to be truly organized and have a great growth strategy that they stick to. They know where they are going and they have the plan to get there.

Pros

Financially sound corporation.
If you are on the inner circle, there are many opportunities for upward movement.

Cons

It is much like high school popular kids. If you are one of the chosen ones, life is good. This does not mean that you are good at your job or the most qualified.
Too many layers of management to go thru to get any decision made--thought corporations did away with all those layers years ago.
Moving ahead so fast that the staff is stressed to max over whether will have a job or not in the end.
Company is moving to using a business model used in Australia, which is a very different business model that is friendly to indepent agents; goint to the large broker-type relationships.

Advice to Senior Management

Do business like US companies do business in America; not doing business like the Aussies do in Australia. Two different ways of doing business.

Pros

Abundance of work available, diversified work opportunities. Great physcial environment - office, equipment, supplies, amenities. Majority of mainstream workers are cheerful and helpful.

Cons

Senior IT leadership clearly does not have a roadmap / master plan for implementation of internal process improvement, nor a solid communications plan that couples with resource planning and training programs. An extremely lean organization with a large percentage of projects behind schedule and/or wasted funding as a result of inefficient planning and execution. Upper level mgt (program managers) seem to be stuck on titles and position rather that being in touch with the floor and project teams. Additionally those leaders seem to not have adequate career experiences within the realm of project management themselves. Constant shifting of priorities, team organization, resources and lack of updates / communication hamper a fast growth environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Read the CONS and address accordingly .... first by putting resources in place who know how to triage, take inventory, design and execute an action plan for improvement. Executive leadership should take charge and truly know what is happening amongst the teams instead of relying upon the status provided by top level advisors, as the legitimacy of that information should be tested / validated. Finally - work towards having faith and confidence in a TRUE estimate process that is based upon logical discovery of work packages / task realization - so that project initiation isnt viewed as a necessary but unreliable phase of a project.

Pros

Pros
Coworkers
Paycheck
Benefits are good
Office hours good

Cons

Cons
Management is not engaged
Compensation not up to standard
Human Resource issues not handled well
"Be lucky you have a job" mentality
Most jobs being moved to Wisconsin
Definitely - "who you know" - not what you know

Pros

People support,
satisfactory compensation,
good management

Cons

politics that bring other people down

Advice to Senior Management

value dependability and heart over skills

Pros

Good immediate managers, good coworkers.

Cons

Working for a monolithic beast, low motivation, dispassionate environment.

Advice to Senior Management

None

Pros

The company is poised to be one of the top 5 P/C writers in North America, given the acquisitions over the past 5 years.

Cons

The regular "announcements" of consolidating operations to Sun Prairie
Meager bonus despite a 2009 combined ratio of under 90%
Penny wise and pound foolish expense decisions
Tedious expense reporting process for employees
Lack of communication - a real problem
Cumbersome management reporting arrangements in certain departments
Old IT systems
Cutting back PTO for employees, depending on the pillar they work in, as part of standardization

Advice to Senior Management

The "return on shareholder equity" message is old and tired. Building a positive, enthusiastic employee base is the key to increasing profits. Many people on the front line have fallen into the "glad to have a job" category, or the "I'm going to leave at the first opportunity". The second category include many talented people, but they are terribly frustrated! A company filled with "glad to have a job" types is not the blueprint for an excellent company. The company appears as if it is positioning itself to sell off pillars - expense cutbacks, consolidation, leadership revolving doors.

Pros

good people who are friendly and approachable. willing to teach and share with you experience, stories and knowledge. senior management advocate learning and training though there is tight budget for that

Cons

it is very like normal office work where you are allocated work and then expected to work on it. little interaction with people given the nature of my work

Advice to Senior Management

continue on the belief to ensure there is learning and training for everyone. it is great though if not implement properly, can backfire.

Pros

Good work life balance, HR department is very much attuned to the needs of employees by organizing after work events. Top management gives constructive feedback. Group CEO has the sort of fatherly figure to him, though appear distant imo.

Cons

Compensation is definitely below market rate. Areas of opportunities may seem little on areas such as casualty, trade finance, liability lines but other business areas sees more opportunities for progression.

Advice to Senior Management

CEO needs to be more approachable to employees, revise the pay grades. Succession planning has to be dealt with in a not lackadaisical manner and new business lines should be given the support it requires. Leadership at critical business areas are not given much thought.

Pros

The people. This is, by far, the friendliest company I have ever worked for. The people and the agents i deal with are professional and all work towards one goal - to be the best at what we do. No matter what the job is.

Cons

The pay seems to be below market value. I've spoken to counterparts and they are making more money. Much more money! This is the most disappointing thing about this company. It seems they don't value the 'front line' employees. They cater to the back office employees which is frustrating. Not to say that their job is not as important as ours but without the front line people you don't need a back office. At the end of the day this is a relationship based business and if we don't have the relationships - we don't get the business.

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs to decide what type of company we are. They need to communicate a better vision and steer us towards that vision. it seems we are a ship floating adrift.