Fall 2012 Extra Credit Assignments for Insurance Operations

Assignment 1. Due Friday, September 14, 2012 [15 extra credit points]

Read and review the following articles:

How Wall Street Creates Criminals                           

College Football is King in the South, and Uneasy Lies the Crown

and the first two chapters out the book FIASCO by Frank Partnoy

Develop a 10 page paper with full references on the topic of how power, and money in business, college administration and investment banking may lead to ethical wrongdoing and what are the ways these failures might be prevented. You should first summarize each reading identifying the major views and findings, and then critically analyze the positions taken by each author. In what ways is college athletics/administration similiar to what goes on in business and on Wall Street today? What may be the consequences of these continuing ethical lapses? What conclusions can be reached when comparing the recent problems at Penn State University, the trading information outlined in FIASCO and the article on Wall Street criminal activity by the Cornell University Law professor who worked for the Securities and Exchange Commission. Feel free to also include more recent information on the failure of PFGBest and the connections of its founder with the UNI athletic department and administration.

Assignment 2: Due Monday, October 15, 2012 [5 extra credit points]

You are to research the issue of rates on homeowner's insurance in relation to dog ownership. Over the years there have been several articles detailing underwriting and rating for liability coverages on homeowner's policies with various breeds of dogs. You may want to do an internet search on such key words as: homeowner's policies, dog ownership, rating of HO policies based on dog breeds. Once you have found an article on this topic, you will need to summarize it and discuss which dogs may lead to higher premiums and why that might be true.