Wharton's Insurance and Risk Management Department, the first of its kind in the world, approaches its field from a number of different perspectives: as a market, as a risk management technique, as a business, and as an instrument of public policy. Wharton faculty examine insurance against a background of accelerating change in the legal, regulatory, organizational, and economic environment in which businesses operate. Other risk management tools are evaluated from a financial management viewpoint.

The Insurance and Risk Management Department also focuses on actuarial science, which includes life/health and property/casualty actuarial models, modern financial tools, employee benefits design, pension plan evaluation, and statistical methods applied to insurance and financial problems.