Introducing you to the individuals who propel The National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research forward and shaping the future of insurance and risk education. Today, we are proud to spotlight Beth Benhart, Senior Director of Instructional Design.
Beth’s journey is one of lifelong learning and adaptation. Starting as a high school science teacher after receiving her Bachelor of Science from The University of Michigan, Beth quickly developed a passion for leveraging technology to enhance learning experiences. A pursuit which led her to obtain a Master of Arts in Educational Technology from Michigan State University in 2015. This early introduction to the power of technology for education set a fitting trajectory for Beth as she pivoted into the adult education sector as a corporate trainer for a Detroit-based health insurance company.
Cementing her career in insurance was a move to Chicago, where Beth assumed the role of Instructional Designer at The Horton Group, a regional broker in the Midwest. During her time there, she constructed new employee onboarding processes and designed sales training, software courses, and compliance training that reinforced the dynamic nature of the insurance industry—an industry that Beth, like many of us, found herself in almost serendipitously but quickly grew to appreciate for its complexity and potential.
In the Spring of 2020, Beth joined The National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research as an Instructional Design Specialist following the cancellation of classroom programs due to COVID-19. This role brought forth a unique challenge: to refresh and modernize our self-paced suite of courses, a task that had extra significance as these courses were rapidly growing in popularity among the increasingly remote workforce.
Beth now leads The National Alliance’s Instructional Design, Quality Control, and Learning Resources teams as the Senior Director of Instructional Design. In partnership with the company’s knowledgeable team of Academic Directors, Beth has overseen the revamp of The National Alliance’s most popular designation programs (CISR, CIC, and CRM).
Most recently, Beth championed the transition to a new and improved learning portal and the impending release of a proprietary knowledge bot, AlliBot. AlliBot is just one of the ways that Beth and her team plan to harness the power of artificial intelligence to curate personalized, engaging, and effective learning experiences. Beth isn’t afraid to prototype new training techniques and approaches to meet better the needs of today’s risk and insurance professionals.
We believe Beth isn’t just shaping our organization’s future but also inspiring other risk management and insurance professionals to continuously learn, innovate, and lead in their field.