Adam Sullivan '17 - State Auto Insurance Companies

Name: Adam Sullivan (front row, left)

Class Year: 2017

Major: Mathematics

Hometown: Louisville, Ohio

Internship: State Auto Insurance Companies 

Location: Columbus, Ohio

Photo Description: This photo was taken toward the end of my internship after I had spent time in each of my rotations. All of these individuals are Otterbein alumni that I met during my experience with State Auto, and I spent time working side by side with and reporting to many of them. 

Internship Responsibilities: The position that I held with State Auto was the role of a Rotational Intern. This was a very unique internship because, rather than being assigned to one role for a specific department last summer, I was able to learn about the entire insurance industry and experience first hand five of the departments that make up State Auto Insurance Companies. These included working with the Actuarial group for Personal Lines Home Insurance, Personal Lines Product Management, Personal Lines Underwriting, Business Insurance Underwriting, and State Auto University, which is a group that helps continue the education of State Auto employees and allows them to obtain designations both professionally and within the company. While working with these different groups I received multiple projects that involved big data gathering, organizing, and representing using Microsoft Excel and other data analytics software that would serve as the foundation of future projects. I attended multiple team and inter-departmental meetings throughout my ten weeks with State Auto, allowing me to grow my understanding of how corporate meetings are run and the ability of different groups to join together to create a product, along with their ability to adjust on little time notice as State Auto made a transition to a new CEO throughout the summer.

What I Learned: Obtaining this style of internship that allowed me to experience these different environments vastly increased my abilities to communicate with others on both a social and professional level. The last, and possibly most effective, part of my internship was being able to develop mentor relationships that I will certainly continue throughout this school year, and the other individuals that I met all made me feel very welcome and useful for the company. For these two reasons specifically, I firmly believe that State Auto Insurance Companies has a great future and I would love to have the opportunity to work with them again.