Pros
When I was recruited, I always heard people talk about what a great place to work NATL was. And after starting, you would see people in the office (when we were in the office that is) from other departments who looked happy, and it always seemed like maybe they were experiencing something vastly different than me and my coworkers in claims. I think there's something to be said about NATL as a company, that they pay pretty well for industry standards (for new people that is - see more about that on cons), and that some people clearly are content there. But my department was just a bad one I think. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. The company is stable and profits increase year over year. There are 3 different bonuses throughout the year, some of which are dependent on company performance/profit, but they have never missed giving all 3 bonuses since the early 2000s I believe.
Cons
In my department there was a lot of work and not enough people to do it. We would constantly hear from the managers that they were hiring new folks, but they were never hiring as fast as people were quitting, and it always seemed like they were hiring at the wrong level. For example, hiring a bunch of claims specialists, but then when the annual graduate development program came around, there were 0 new grads hired into the claims department. Why? We need more people to take on smaller claims, so hire new people to be trained! Bring in new talent that way! That seemed like an obvious miss to me. Additionally, I voiced several ideas for how to alleviate some pain points for the average joe in the department (not hiring related), and was brushed off by upper management and the claims training team. That leaves a bad taste in your mouth, when every monthly staff meeting all you hear is "if you have an idea, if you need something, tell us! We want to listen to you, we VALUE you!". It was all very two-faced. Additionally, a lot of people were quitting around the time I did. I was one of the last to leave at that time (that I know of -- I'm not sure who may have left after me). Of those people who were leaving, some of them had been there for quite a while before I was hired in. And several of them disclosed that they were leaving for pay issues. The pay I was receiving after being hired in with no experience was already equal or greater to their pay as someone who had been working in this department with the company for 5-7 years. They had not received any pay adjustments to correct this, and were choosing to continue their claims careers at companies that would value them more and compensate them accordingly. Additionally, many people in the department told me that if I didn't like doing claims I needed to get out while I still could. If you begin down the road of a claims career, it soon becomes your only marketable skill. Management told employees over and over again that if we were not happy, we should let them know-- they wanted us to find another place in the NATL family rather than quit. I did what I was told, I followed the advice from management, and multiple times I spoke to management and voiced my concerns that I didn't feel claims was the right fit and wanted to apply for other internal positions. I was blocked from those positions, treated poorly by a certain claims executive, and was made to stay in claims. Once NATL has you in claims, they will do all they can to keep you there, and will not let you move on unless you quit. I was naïve and I found that out the hard way.