underwriter

senior software engineer

claims examiner

assistant underwriter

claims specialist

National Indemnity Company

Worked at this company for the 5 years to get my 401k match as they offer a 5% match that vests at that point. If I had to do it over again, I probably would have left at around 2-3 years because what you gain in the 401k is pretty much the tradeoff for really low salary pay, but this was my first job out of college so I was still trying to find my footing in the work world. It's not a bad job for a new college graduate, but I don't recommend sticking around as long as I did.

At NICO, they pride themselves at hiring recent graduates across the spectrum so you get a mixed bag of majors. They hire based on passing the Wonderlic and math test during an interview. While I did find many of my colleagues to be very intelligent, the trade off is there are a fair amount of people, especially at the managerial level, who think they are smarter than everyone else they work with. 

At times this made my work counter-productive, and our department had one micro-manager (who I didn't report directly to ) in particular who was highly disliked in inner-circles and notorious about digging into projects in the department and delaying their completion with really bad advice and ideas. Of course, this manager never did any of the project work,  just took credit for the completion of it, so never knew the actual logistics of the project changes being requested. 

Also, this manager always defended themself by telling everyone of the 15+ years tenure at the company, which I did find that to be a major issue (or theme) with the leadership in the company - they reward people more based on tenure and relationships than actual qualifications. On numerous occasions, the company promoted someone who caused as many problems as they solved. There's just too much politics involved for my liking at this company, so I left for a better employer.

I worked in commercial auto underwriting. I was a National Indemnity underwriter, but I spent most of my time reviewing GEICO policies and speaking with/training their agents on more advanced insurance submissions. I was on a call rotation with a small team, so a fair portion of my day was spent on the phone, with some e-mail interaction. 

The work was handled in a small team environment, for the most part. I had a direct supervisor in charge of 5-6 of us. The work itself was fairly tedious and repetitive, but not unchallenging. The interactions between the staff were almost always friendly, and the younger crowd was fairly involved with going out to lunch, to bars, on the weekend, etc (large company). 

The culture expected you to work hard, but mostly to just make sure that you had done your part and that your work was done. I was on salary, so I didn't receive overtime. I expected on the average day to be there 30-60 minutes longer than my required time, but I wasn't necessarily the fastest worker. Occasionally, volunteers were needed to help for a couple hours on weekends--with usually the reward being pizza or something, not pay.

Compensation felt on the lower side, but not unreasonable, especially considering the lower cost of living in Omaha, NE. Benefits were good. Advancement opportunities are plentiful and it is easy to move around into different positions. They list jobs in-house first. National Indemnity hates laying off employees, so stability is excellent--however the price is that you may have to work a bit harder. They try to avoid overhiring during economic booms, so that they can also avoid laying off during downturns.

When I first started at NICO, I really enjoyed it. But things have changed drastically over the last several years and it just isn't the same place anymore.

The senior leadership is completely tone deaf and out of touch with the day-to-day employees. We have asked for more flexibility in the work-from-home policy and they have made it more restrictive since the pandemic. 

There are really 3 types of people who work for this company:

Type A: the first are the ignorant employees; if senior leadership told them to eat rat poison because it is good for them, these ignorant employees would do it in a heartbeat. They will gladly work unpaid overtime because they have no competency of cost benefit analysis.

Type B: These are the employees that know they are being taken advantage of by senior leadership, but they don't want the anxiety of being unemployed, so they are willing to trade off being overworked and underpaid in return for job security.

Type C: These are the employees that know when you work 60-70 hours on average on salary that you are really making around $21 an hour. Also, these are the employees that know from work experience a good number of things to improve the company's operations and share them with senior leadership, only to be completely ignored (instead senior leadership often makes decisions with negative effects for the employees and then downplays our concerns while they take their 2 hour lunch break and leave at 3pm everyday). These employees typically leave the company after 5 years for higher pay and competent leadership elsewhere. 

So the question is what type of employee are you? If you are Type C, like me, you probably should look for a better employer.

A typical day at work: check emails, review project, check-in with co-workers

What you believe you learned: Not much, really behind the times in IT. The leaders seemed to be really uninformed about modern tech.

Management: I would only hear from my manager when there was a problem. They recently changed the hybrid policy to make us come in an extra day, which was going back on their word from a year ago.

Workplace culture: High marks here, they did some good events but not sure that offset the other problems I had to deal with working there.

The hardest part of the job: This isn't really a "hard job". Most work is repetitive and boring. I often found opportunities to upgrade software was not seriously concerned by management, probably because they were content sitting in their office with the door shut most days. Work would have been easier or quicker if they tried to upgrade the significantly outdated software.

The most enjoyable part of the job: The once-a-year team event

This place is really difficult to get fired at. I worked here for several years and only knew of one of my coworkers who got fired. They do earn high marks in my book for retention of employees, however,  they will overwork you and underpay you. When you complain about it to upper management, they just make condescending remarks about your worth or point the finger at someone else. I decided to leave the company because their "raises" were a joke. I made friends with a lot of my co-workers, so that was the hard part of leaving but the employer I left for ended up bumping my salary by 12K. NICO runs a scheme of trying to trick their employees of thinking they are being paid at industry norm. A quick google search online showed me that they were taking serious advantage of my work relative to the pay.

Some days I could give this company 5 stars and other days easily 1 star. So I'm stuck between a 2 or a 3.

The good: work culture is pretty good, the company doesn't layoff employees, the health insurance and wellness program was pretty good. They reimburse 30 bucks on a gym membership per month. Easy to find a few friends to go out for drinks. 

The bad: the pay is well below average but we always hear how great the company profits are, cafeteria food is hit and miss, management will selectively apply the "rules" to those under them, but will completely ignore them when it applies to themselves...and like most other jobs you always have a couple rotten apples for coworkers that make your job harder. 

The dress code is relaxed, but not super informal. The WFH schedule and benefits are excellent. However the pay does not even consider, nor cover, the cost of living increases, and discussions about it fall on deaf ears. This, combined with stress, (for perfection expectations and extreme focus required with many distractions, that also require a ton of focus), make me want another job. Management is ok, but like many large companies, they defend/make excuses for employees when they do not act appropriately. The culture is improving, but I feel it still isn't reflective of ethnicities of the city I live in. Progressing into another position seems impossible.

If you like insurance a lot you might be happy working here since insurance careers is highest growth potential. I work on the phones which was stressful because people are rude. My manager is nice but the people at the top act like an elitist and couldn’t care less about the hard work we do. 
Company reports fake survey results about their internal worker satisfaction surveys cause most of us know the real sentiment in the company. 
For the most part co-workers are nice. That said, there is way too much workplace gossip and sometimes my desk belongings get touched when I’m gone. The best is the Xmas party and free coffee.

As much as intelligence and skill, the company values integrity and work ethic. They are very selective in hiring because they are looking for employees that will stay for 20+ years, and a lot of their employees do. They are more likely to invest in additional training for a poor performer than they are to fire that person. They also do most of their promoting from within, and give, from what I've heard, pretty decent raises compared to other industries. 

National Indemnity was a great experience for me. The management team members were very kind and positive people to work with. The company takes great care of its employees and promotes very well within the larger corporation family itself, so the opportunities to change roles yet remain with the same parent company are very good.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Underwriter 3 salaries reported	$63,333 per year
Senior software engineer 1 salary reported	$127,500 per year
Claims examiner 4 salaries reported	$69,416 per year
Assistant underwriter 1 salary reported	$25.50 per hour
Claims specialist 4 salaries reported	$58,000 per year

Working at National Indemnity Company: Company Overview and Reviews

National Indemnity Company

National Indemnity Company Ratings

Popular jobs at National Indemnity Company

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected