This website is managed
by the S. S. Huebner Foundation for Insurance Education. For information
about our affiliates at the Wharton
School of the University
of Pennsylvania, please visit their respective websites.
In 1940, leaders in the insurance industry and the University of Pennsylvania
collaborated to develop a solution to the inadequate supply of collegiate
professors, research and publications on important issues related to the
burgeoning fields of insurance and risk management. The founders observed
that of the 384 instructors teaching 584 college courses in insurance and
related fields in 1940, only 38 were full-time teachers with at least half
of their teaching load in insurance and risk management. In response to
this teaching shortage, the founders created the S.S. Huebner Foundation
for Insurance Education in 1941. Funded by insurance companies and administered
by the Wharton School
of the University of Pennsylvania,
the Foundation provides educational fellowships to the most promising scholars
pursuing careers in insurance and risk management education, and promotes
research that addresses important business and public policy issues facing
the insurance industry.
The founders named this new joint enterprise after Wharton professor, Solomon
S. Huebner, whose life’s work was focused on the advancement of insurance
education. In 1904, Dr. Huebner taught the first organized course on the
economics of insurance ever offered at the collegiate level. His courses
were so popular that insurance was accorded departmental status at the Wharton
School in 1913, making it one of the school’s oldest departments. There
were no textbooks in insurance until Dr. Huebner wrote pioneering texts
on life insurance, property insurance and marine insurance. While at Wharton,
Dr. Huebner also founded both the American College in 1927 and the American
Institute for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters in 1942. Given Dr.
Huebner’s dedication to insurance education, it was not surprising that
the founders decided to name the Foundation in his honor.
One of the principal objectives of the Huebner Foundation is the strengthening
of collegiate insurance education by increasing the number of professors
specializing in insurance. With the financial support of the insurance industry,
the Foundation accomplishes this objective by providing fellowship grants
to students pursuing the Ph.D. degree at the Wharton School. Huebner fellows
receive the highest quality of education from the Insurance and Risk Management
faculty at Wharton, widely recognized as the best in the world. The Foundation
has enjoyed great success in this regard, as a high proportion of the professors
of insurance in North America are former Huebner fellows. Huebner alumni
hold prominent positions at U.S. and Canadian universities, including those
schools that are recognized as leaders in undergraduate insurance education,
including Georgia State University, the University of Hartford, Florida
State University, the University of Georgia, Temple University, Laval University,
the University of Calgary and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Former
Huebner fellows also hold leadership positions at insurance industry educational
institutions, such as the American College, the American Institute, and
the Certified Employee Benefit Specialist Program. With support from the
Huebner Foundation, 145 Huebner fellows have completed doctoral or post-doctoral
studies. These fellows have, in turn, trained their students to be college
professors, further increasing the supply of qualified teachers of insurance
and risk management. The Foundation has facilitated the increase in the
quantity of well-trained insurance professors far beyond the 38 full-time
professors teaching insurance courses in 1941.
The Huebner Foundation has achieved similar success in meeting its objectives
of promoting research and enriching the literature in the fields of insurance
economics and risk management. Huebner fellowship recipients receive training
in the methodologies needed to address insurance and risk management issues
through research and must demonstrate the highest level of proficiency in
these research skills in order to complete Wharton‘s rigorous program in
insurance and risk management. Huebner alumni have written much of the literature
on risk and insurance, including textbooks and original research. This literature
and research addresses a wide range of insurance and public policy issues
such as risk classification in life insurance, the solvency of insurance
companies, and regulatory and economic issues in workers’ compensation.
In additional, Huebner fellows have been at the forefront of academic scholarship
in their consideration of the evolving role of the insurance industry and
its relationship with other financial service providers. Works includes
the exploration of new financial instruments and strategies for addressing
insurance and non-insurance risk, asset-liability management of financial
institutions, capital allocation for insurance firms and the joint management
of insurance and financial risks of business firms. Some of this research
is reported in professional and academic journals, but many of the more
substantial investigations are presented in the Huebner Foundation book
and monograph series. Please see our Book Sales section of this Site for
a list of our available publications.
The Huebner Foundation is proud of its many accomplishments over the last
sixty-one years. Not content to rest on its laurels, however, the Foundation
is looking ahead to the future by providing its fellowship recipients with
an education that addresses emerging issues in insurance and risk management
and providing these students with the tools to address the issues attendant
with the dramatic changes in the insurance industry in recent years. These
are dynamic times at the Foundation, and we look forward to serving the
academic and insurance communities for another sixty years. |