What is meant by "ethics"? What does the term mean when in reference to the insurance industry? Where do our ethical standards come from? How can they best be applied in the everyday practice of insurance? These are among the questions this course—Ethics in the P&C (Property and Casualty) Insurance Workplace—strives to answer.

This course presents a thorough discussion of ethics as it applies to those who work in the property and casualty insurance industry. It presents examples of both ethical and unethical behavior, conflicts of interest, and some of the real-world ethics failures that have made headlines in recent years. The course reviews the objectives of ethics codes, provides several examples of codes of ethics, and gives guidance on how to draft an ethics code specific to any business or organization. Lastly, it challenges the student to think about ethical decision-making with real-world case studies on various ethical dilemmas of the types encountered in insurance sales, claims, agency management, and underwriting.

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:

• recognize the origins of each person’s ethics
• provide examples of both ethical and unethical behavior in business, with emphasis on the business of insurance
• identify conflicts of interest and describe methods for dealing with them
• understand why organizations develop ethics codes, explain the two general approaches used in developing ethics codes, and relate examples based on the ethics codes of various insurance organizations
• describe the steps any organization can follow in developing its own ethics policy
• explain some of the key points to consider when trying to make an ethical decision
• apply ethical principles when evaluating the types of ethical dilemmas insurance practitioners face
• develop an increased personal awareness of ethics and its impact on daily activities