Quick answer:Risk management and insurance degrees usually cover underwriting, insurance law, enterprise risk and corporate finance. The nearest occupation, insurance underwriters, is shrinking at -2.6% through 2034 on a median of $81,370, while the broader financial management category is growing 14.8% on a median of $166,570 (BLS OEWS, May 2025; BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34). That gap is the whole story of this degree, and it is covered below.
What the Coursework Usually Covers
Principles of risk and insurance - identifying exposures, and the retain-reduce-transfer decision that follows
Underwriting and rating - risk selection, pricing, and the loss data behind both
Property and liability insurance - coverage forms, exclusions, and how a policy actually responds to a claim
Employee benefits and life and health - the personnel side of corporate risk
Enterprise risk management - operational, strategic and financial exposure treated as one portfolio at board level
Corporate finance and investments - because insurers and corporate treasuries are, in large part, investment operations
Widely recognized industry designations are commonly pursued alongside or after the degree and are often what employers screen on for advancement. Ask whether a program’s coursework aligns to any of them.
Why This Page Exists Separately
CIP 52.1701 and 52.1704 are the risk management and insurance program codes, and 56 institutions awarded them at degree level in 2024 (IPEDS Completions, 2024). Before this page existed, that search resolved to the general finance degree page, which lists a far larger set of schools teaching a different curriculum.
The distinction matters more here than it does in most program splits. A finance degree teaches valuation, capital structure and markets. A risk and insurance degree teaches exposure, coverage and loss, which is a genuinely separate body of knowledge with its own vocabulary, and the insurance industry recruits from the second group specifically. A reader searching for insurance programs and landing on a finance school list would have been shown institutions that mostly do not award this credential.
At 56 institutions the supply is thin nationally, and the national school list below is the fullest answer. What the state and metro pages add is location: the same pool of schools, with state wage data attached. Online enrollment is what makes that split honest for a degree awarded in few places.
Before you request information anywhere, ask which industry designations the coursework aligns to, since that alignment is a large part of what the major is worth. With that filter set, compare online risk management programs enrolling now:
Colleges Offering This Degree
Every school listed is verified in federal IPEDS data both to award this degree and to offer programs that can be completed entirely by distance education at this level. Whether this exact degree is delivered fully online varies by school, so confirm the format before you apply.
How we rank schools – graduation rate, graduate earnings, cost and retention.
Advertising plays no part.
This page lists 10 schools, closest group first, then ordered by
BOC Score with the highest at the top.
10 of them carry a score.
LOCAL RANK
Location / proximity to this page
Defines the local group
Graduation rate how often students finish
30%
Median earnings, 10 years after entry whether it paid off
25%
Average net price what students actually pay after aid; lower ranks higher
20%
Retention rate how many come back for year two
15%
Fully online availability whether you can study while working
10%
Scores come from IPEDS (2024) and the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard.
Earnings are for all graduates of a school, not one program, so treat them as a signal
about the institution rather than about this subject.
Sponsored listings are paid placements and are labelled as such; they are separate from
this ranking and never change it. Read the full methodology.
The -2.6% projection has a specific cause and understanding it tells you which coursework to weight.
Rules engines took the routine files. Personal auto and standard homeowners underwriting is now largely automated. Data is pulled, rated and bound without a human reading the file. That work did not move to another job title; it stopped being done by hand, and the count of underwriter positions fell accordingly.
Complex and commercial risk did not automate. Large property schedules, construction and contractor risk, professional liability, cyber and anything with a bespoke coverage structure still requires judgment. Those files are getting more complex, not less, and the people who handle them sit in the upper part of the wage range that reaches $145,160 at the 90th percentile.
Corporate risk management grew. The demand did not disappear, it moved to the buyer side. Companies now employ risk managers, and enterprise risk sits inside the financial management category rather than the underwriter category.
The student implication is direct: weight the enterprise risk, commercial lines and finance coursework over the personal lines material. The first group is where the field went.
Who This Suits
People already in insurance who want out of processing. Claims adjusters, service representatives and agency staff are the most common entrants, and the degree is designed to move them toward underwriting, brokerage or corporate risk.
Bookkeepers and finance staff at contractors and small firms.Bookkeeping work already touches certificates of insurance, bonding and payroll classification. Risk management is the formal version of that material and one of the shorter jumps from an accounting-side role.
Tradespeople who have argued with an insurer and lost. Contractors, roofers and specialty trades deal with coverage disputes constantly, and some of the best commercial underwriters and brokers came out of the trades they now write. Field knowledge is worth real money on complex construction risk.
Credit transfer is decided by the receiving institution and genuinely varies, so request a written transfer evaluation before you enroll.
Is It Worth It?
The case for is the second row of the table below. Financial managers, the category that holds enterprise risk and treasury work, show a median of $166,570 with about 74,600 openings a year and 14.8% growth. This degree is one of the recognized routes there, and it arrives with a specialization most general business graduates do not have.
The case against is the first row. If the plan is to be an insurance underwriter specifically, the federal projection is negative and the openings figure of 8,200 a year is small. That does not make the field closed, but it does make it a poor thing to plan a decade around without an intention to move up or across.
Insurance underwriters earn a median $81,370 across 105,420 jobs and are projected to change by -2.6%; financial managers earn $166,570 across 841,710 jobs and are projected to grow 14.8% (BLS OEWS, May 2025; BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34).
Risk Management and Insurance at a Glance
Metric
Detail
Source
Median annual wage
$81,370
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Wage range
$55,530 (10th pct) - $145,160 (90th pct)
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Employment
105,420 insurance underwriters
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Projected change (2024-34)
-2.6%, about 8,200 openings per year
BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34
Typical credential
Bachelor’s, with master’s used for corporate risk roles
Program catalogs
Institutions awarding
56
IPEDS Completions, 2024
Geo coverage
State, metro and city pages - see Programs by State below
All wage and employment figures BLS OEWS, May 2025; growth figures BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34.
Those two rows are far apart and should be read as a ladder rather than a choice. Very few people start as a financial manager. The underwriting side is where the technical knowledge is built, and the median of $81,370 with a mean of $93,700 is a reasonable place to build it. What the table argues is that staying there for a full career is the weaker plan, because the seat count is falling while the seat count above it is rising by about 74,600 openings a year. Individual outcomes may vary.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do insurance underwriters make?
The national median annual wage is $81,370 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). The bottom 10 percent earn $55,530 or less and the top 10 percent earn $145,160 or more, across employment of 105,420.
Is insurance underwriting a shrinking job?
Yes, modestly. Employment is projected to change by -2.6% from 2024 to 2034, with about 8,200 openings per year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34). Automated rating and straight-through processing have absorbed a share of routine underwriting, and this page treats that as the central fact rather than a footnote.
What else does a risk management degree lead toward?
The broader destination is financial management, SOC 11-3031, which shows a median of $166,570 across employment of 841,710 and is projected to grow 14.8% through 2034 (BLS OEWS, May 2025; BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34). Enterprise risk and treasury roles sit inside that category. Individual outcomes may vary.
How many schools offer a risk management and insurance degree?
56 institutions awarded CIP 52.1701 or 52.1704 at bachelor's or master's level in 2024 (IPEDS Completions, 2024). That is a thin supply, and the state and metro pages below break that same national pool down by location.
Do you need this degree to work in insurance?
No. Most people in the industry entered through claims, service or sales and hold a general business degree or none at all. The risk and insurance major matters most for underwriting, brokerage and corporate risk roles, where the coursework maps directly onto the work.
Can you study risk management online?
Yes. The subject is analytical and legal rather than laboratory-based, so distance delivery is straightforward at both bachelor's and master's level. Confirm the format for a specific program before you apply.
Is risk management the same as occupational safety?
No. This degree is about financial and insurable risk: underwriting, retention, transfer and enterprise exposure. Workplace hazard control is a separate field with its own program code and its own page on this site.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 - Insurance Underwriters (SOC 13-2053), Financial Managers (SOC 11-3031)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, 2024-34
U.S. Department of Education, IPEDS Completions, 2024 - CIP 52.1701, CIP 52.1704
About this guide: Researched and written by the TradeCareerPath Editorial Team. Our editorial team researches and sources every trade school and career guide using federal labor and education data, including BLS OEWS and Employment Projections, DOL apprenticeship records, IPEDS, College Scorecard, and state licensing boards. We follow the editorial standards documented at /editorial-policy/.
