This website is managed by the S. S. Huebner Foundation for Insurance Education. For information about our affiliates at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, please visit their respective websites.
In 1940, leaders in the insurance industry and the University of Pennsylvania collaborated to develop a solution to the inadequate supply of collegiate professors, research and publications on important issues related to the burgeoning fields of insurance and risk management. The founders observed that of the 384 instructors teaching 584 college courses in insurance and related fields in 1940, only 38 were full-time teachers with at least half of their teaching load in insurance and risk management. In response to this teaching shortage, the founders created the S.S. Huebner Foundation for Insurance Education in 1941. Funded by insurance companies and administered by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the Foundation provides educational fellowships to the most promising scholars pursuing careers in insurance and risk management education, and promotes research that addresses important business and public policy issues facing the insurance industry.
The founders named this new joint enterprise after Wharton professor, Solomon S. Huebner, whose life’s work was focused on the advancement of insurance education. In 1904, Dr. Huebner taught the first organized course on the economics of insurance ever offered at the collegiate level. His courses were so popular that insurance was accorded departmental status at the Wharton School in 1913, making it one of the school’s oldest departments. There were no textbooks in insurance until Dr. Huebner wrote pioneering texts on life insurance, property insurance and marine insurance. While at Wharton, Dr. Huebner also founded both the American College in 1927 and the American Institute for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters in 1942. Given Dr. Huebner’s dedication to insurance education, it was not surprising that the founders decided to name the Foundation in his honor.