(Radio Iowa) – The University of Iowa’s undergraduate insurance degree program has only been around a year, and it’s already being named among the top ten such programs in the country. Martin Grace, who heads the U-I’s Risk Management and Insurance program in the Tippie College of Business, says it’s a thrill to see national recognition for such a new effort. “The program has actually been around for a number of years,” Grace says. “You could get a minor in it, or they called it a certificate, which sounds better than a minor, but it’s like four or five classes, and then last year, they made it an official major.” More than 200 students have signed on for the new major at the Iowa City institution.

“It seems like it’s relatively small, but that’s a strong signal of commitment by the Tippie College as well as the university to support this academic field,” Grace says. “It’s actually a professional field, and it makes our program very strong.” This week, U.S. News and World Report named the U-I’s insurance degree program number-eight in the nation, its first appearance in the rankings. While the state is widely known for its hogs, corn and soybeans, more than 200 insurance companies are headquartered in Iowa. “It’s as important as agriculture in the state, and you think of this state as being an agricultural state, but to have another sector that important?” Grace says. “I think it’s like 12-and-a-half percent of the state’s GDP. In the typical state, it’s one-sixth of that.” He says the risk management and insurance industry is the state’s largest non-agricultural economic sector, while the finance and insurance industries account for some 95-thousand Iowa jobs.

“It’s not just insurance sales, right? So a lot of what insurance companies do are pay claims and invest. So there’s just a lot of jobs, finance jobs, there’s some sales jobs, but the insurance companies in Iowa don’t just sell in Iowa. They sell all over the country.” He predicts the demand for risk management and insurance graduates will continue to grow, especially as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce refers to Des Moines as a “global hub of the insurance industry.”