Christine Nauth | SUM Insurance

Christine Nauth, Vice President, Environmental Impairment Liability Practice Leader, SUM Insurance

Pursue your passion, especially if it leads to a master’s degree in a discipline directly connected with your ethics. But, if you graduate with that degree during a financial crisis, such as in 2008-09, you’ll need to get inventive.

“I was focused on…applying to dozens of private and public sectors for internships and I wasn’t getting anywhere,” says Christine Nauth, recounting her final semester before completing a master’s in environmental science. “I wasn’t hearing call-backs, I wasn’t having interviews.

“It’s a very terrifying revelation. I have all this education [but] it’s not a secure field.”

Fortunately, a friend working in the insurance industry shared details about a position requiring someone with an environmental background. Nauth applied right away and got the job.

“I saw the dynamics behind the scenes, [how] the industry was collaborative, informative and relevant to everyday life,” she tells Canadian Underwriter. “More importantly, I was able to tie my career back to what I did in school. I then saw the wealth of learning opportunities and skill development [and] realized quickly I could build a career.”

Her career has demonstrated how insurance helps companies responsible for pollution to “do the right thing,” by funding and facilitating environmental cleanup.

Nauth credits good mentors with helping her decide to accept an offer to switch from brokerage to underwriting. “I did rely on my mentors for confidence when deciding, ‘Is this a good opportunity? Is this something I can do?’ So, I wasn’t entering it completely blind.”

The change meant moving from site visits as a broker to working with site-assessment reports as an underwriter. “You’re looking at the macro level of an organization, and you’re pinpointing where their environmental weaknesses are, where you see potential for loss or claims,” she says. “I really like the analytical portion of the underwriting side. It allowed me to delve deeper.”

Her university studies ensured she fully understood gradations of contaminants, as well as the properties of major chemicals prevalent in industrial use. “I was recognized as being knowledgeable on environmental topics. That’s why I was able to progress the way I did,” she says.

Having observed the industry for 15 years, Nauth says women’s progress is slowly evolving and improving. “I say ‘slowly’ because it is quite a vast, all-encompassing machine — talking about small, family-run companies to transnational corporations,” she says. “Not every sector has the same approach to empowering women. It’s not a one-size-fits-all…scenario.”

She credits organizations like the Young Insurance Professionals of Toronto with helping people navigate the industry through an organized mentor-mentee program. That’s allowed Nauth to “pay it forward” to her peers, she says.

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“There are shared resources, and that’s a community that is now being fostered. That’s something that’s been improved [for women in insurance]. So, even if your company doesn’t do this specifically, there are organizations out there that women can reach out to for direction and advice.”

Another area of improvement is workplace flexibility, which advanced when work-from-home became necessary during the COVID-19 pandemic. She notes women have stressed its value in domestic labour and household management.

“It’s not a secret that the brunt of [the work] is felt by women. Working from home is now the norm, rather than the exception, which brings a much healthier work life balance. It is another way that the industry has improved for women.”

Phil Porado

Phil, an award-winning journalist with over 30 years of experience in financial topics, has been managing editor of Canadian Underwriter for more than three years.