Every year on November 11th, the U.S. pauses to honor its military veterans, those who’ve served, sacrificed, and safeguarded the country. Veteran’s Day isn’t just a time for gratitude. It’s a reminder that service doesn’t end with a uniform.
After their service, many veterans continue making an impact, and one of the industries where they’re finding purpose, success, and long-term growth is insurance. I am one of those veterans.
I started in the US Army as an IT specialist before being selected to be a recruiter. After six years of service, I transitioned to private industry as a corporate recruiter for JetBlue. My next move was in the tech field, with Meta where I designed and led inclusion initiatives, before moving into my current position, leading inclusion and diversity across the Americas in the insurance industry with AXA XL.
Why Insurance?
Insurance may not be flashy, but it is an industry with a strong purpose. For veterans like me, who are disciplined, resilient, and skilled at high-stakes problem-solving, it has quite a draw.
In the military, everything is about the mission -- completing the task, supporting your team, protecting valuable assets. Insurance operates the same way. At its core, the insurance industry exists to help prepare for the unexpected, recover from disaster, and regain stability after a loss.
Right now, the commercial insurance industry is transforming, and many veterans’ skills are in demand. As cyber threats, climate change, and disrupted supply chains raise risk, insurers need data analysts, cybersecurity experts, and other tech-savvy professionals to modernize and innovate changing insurance needs and delivery requirements. Like many industries, insurance is going through its own digital transformation. Automation, AI, and data analytics are speeding up pricing, claims, and service, creating opportunities for IT specialists, product managers, and software engineers, among other talent.
Working in insurance, whether helping families rebuild after a fire or advising a business on risk, continues that mission of protecting and building resilience. It’s service but in a different uniform.
Navigating Risk with Data
Consider my colleague Melinda Bruck’s path from the U.S. Coast Guard to AXA XL. Melinda is a data scientist, a member of AXA XL’s Innovation, Data and Transformation team. Her career journey is a great example of how today’s insurance industry needs diverse talent and how it can leverage a veteran’s strengths.
Melinda’s journey started with four years on active duty and sixteen in the reserves, taking her from Honolulu to Alaska’s Bering Strait and her final post in Key West, Florida. Her deployments included hurricane recovery missions, coordinating oil-spill cleanup logistics where she learned to keep missions moving under pressure. After her service on the seas, she transitioned to an administrative role handling HR, IT and other admin tasks. She discovered a love for technology because she became involved in Coast Guard technology deployments, upgrading systems, and driving data improvements. At the same time, she was studying online part-time, laying the groundwork for a shift from service to IT and data thinking.
After retiring from the Coast Guard after 20 years of service, Melinda took her IT training and moved into data science and data engineering, working in various industries, including aviation engineering, retail, finance, and consulting. Today she leads AXA XL’s IDA and Power BI reporting platform, guiding thousands of reporting solutions and steering teams through Power BI transitions. Her Coast Guard roots -- risk awareness, composure under pressure, careful planning, and crisp communication-- give her a unique lens in insurance: turning dashboards into navigational tools that illuminate risk, inform decisions, and help us develop the right insurance protection.
Mission-Driven Work
Veterans are used to high-stakes environments where what they do matters. Working in insurance, whether helping families rebuild after a fire or advising a business on risk, continues that mission of protecting and building resilience. It’s service but in a different uniform.
Veterans come equipped with hard-earned skills that insurance employers want:
- Leadership and discipline – Years of command structure and team management translate directly to supervisory roles.
- Problem-solving under pressure – In claims or catastrophe response, being calm, clear-headed, and decisive is gold.
- Communication and teamwork – Veterans know how to collaborate across departments, cultures, and stress levels.
- Understanding systems and risk – Insurance is all about assessing risk and managing it. Military training aligns closely with that mindset.
Add in reliability, a strong work ethic and the ability to handle dynamic situations. My colleague Noel Pearman, Head of AXA XL’s Bermuda operation, couldn’t agree more. Noel admits that his time with the Bermuda Regiment gave him a practical playbook he uses every day.
As a commissioned officer, Noel learned how to rally a group, focus them on a shared objective, and lead with purpose, habits he calls hugely critical. The regiment taught him grit, planning, and disciplined execution, which show up in how he builds and runs teams and programs. He also learned to be a teacher, mentoring people, keeping morale high, and driving teamwork. He loves the idea that “teamwork really does make the dream work,” and he notes that a tight, well-coordinated small team can often outperform a larger one.
Now, Noel is applying those military-derived principles to a matrix of risks across lines of business, prioritizing talent, efficiency, and growth in that order. He puts people first, focusing on fostering skilled, agile, functional teams while driving disciplined execution at scale. That cross-functional setup helps him bring together underwriters, tech experts, and other stakeholders to address complex client needs, improve governance, and align incentives with outcomes. Taken together, the Regiment’s emphasis on morale, teamwork, and disciplined leadership informs his daily drive to build a more diverse, capable, and resilient Bermuda operation.
From Maritime Law Enforcement to Risk Engineering
As a Maritime Law Enforcement Specialist in the U.S Coast Guard Reserve, AXA XL’s Mark Klimowicz served in high-stress, life-safety environments where he led and coordinated teams during maritime safety and security operations. His duties included search and rescue, migrant interdiction, and counter-narcotics missions, all aimed at ensuring compliance with federal maritime laws and regulations. The role demanded rapid adaptation under pressure, meticulous attention to detail, and unwavering professionalism within strict legal policies and standards. These experiences laid a strong foundation in hazard analysis, policy interpretation, and legal conformity, all of which Mark now applies to help our Construction clients minimize losses, strengthen controls, and protect their financial assets on construction projects.
From these duties, Mark distilled a core set of transferable traits that have propelled his civilian career: team leadership, adaptability and agility, discipline and accountability, attention to detail, problem-solving and critical judgment, cross-functional coordination and communication, and time and stress management. He emphasizes that the military environment taught him to balance mission objectives with safety and regulatory enforcement, a mindset that now informs risk assessments and governance in his insurance work. In short, Mark’s Coast Guard discipline translates into operational agility and rigorous risk engineering that helps safeguard our clients’ construction projects.
The Industry Is Hiring
Insurers are hiring to fuel growth, modernize with data and tech, and speed up claims and service. Veterans bring discipline, teamwork, and calm under pressure that help them learn complex procedures quickly and thrive in fast-paced environments.
We’re fortunate to have transition programs that connect veterans to these opportunities.
This Veteran’s Day let’s move beyond gratitude to action by building pathways for veterans to thrive in insurance.
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Global Asset Protection Services, LLC, and its affiliates (“AXA XL Risk Consulting”) provides risk assessment reports and other loss prevention services, as requested. In this respect, our property loss prevention publications, services, and surveys do not address life safety or third party liability issues. This document shall not be construed as indicating the existence or availability under any policy of coverage for any particular type of loss or damage. The provision of any service does not imply that every possible hazard has been identified at a facility or that no other hazards exist. AXA XL Risk Consulting does not assume, and shall have no liability for the control, correction, continuation or modification of any existing conditions or operations. We specifically disclaim any warranty or representation that compliance with any advice or recommendation in any document or other communication will make a facility or operation safe or healthful, or put it in compliance with any standard, code, law, rule or regulation. Save where expressly agreed in writing, AXA XL Risk Consulting and its related and affiliated companies disclaim all liability for loss or damage suffered by any party arising out of or in connection with our services, including indirect or consequential loss or damage, howsoever arising. Any party who chooses to rely in any way on the contents of this document does so at their own risk.
US- and Canada-Issued Insurance Policies
In the US, the AXA XL insurance companies are: Catlin Insurance Company, Inc., Greenwich Insurance Company, Indian Harbor Insurance Company, XL Insurance America, Inc., XL Specialty Insurance Company and T.H.E. Insurance Company. In Canada, coverages are underwritten by XL Specialty Insurance Company - Canadian Branch and AXA Insurance Company - Canadian branch. Coverages may also be underwritten by Lloyd’s Syndicate #2003. Coverages underwritten by Lloyd’s Syndicate #2003 are placed on behalf of the member of Syndicate #2003 by Catlin Canada Inc. Lloyd’s ratings are independent of AXA XL.
US domiciled insurance policies can be written by the following AXA XL surplus lines insurers: XL Catlin Insurance Company UK Limited, Syndicates managed by Catlin Underwriting Agencies Limited and Indian Harbor Insurance Company. Enquires from US residents should be directed to a local insurance agent or broker permitted to write business in the relevant state.