10 Old Republic SQL Interview Questions (Updated 2024)

Old Republic employees use SQL for analyzing insurance claim patterns, including identifying fraudulent claims and optimizing claims processing, as well as predicting potential financial risks, such as assessing policyholder credit scores. That is why Old Republic includes SQL problems in interviews for Data Analytics, Data Science, and Data Engineering jobs.

So, to help you ace the Old Republic SQL interview, we've curated 10 Old Republic International SQL interview questions in this article.

10 Old Republic International SQL Interview Questions

SQL Question 1: Identifying "Power Users" at Old Republic

Given Old Republic's real estate business model, let's design a scenario where a "Power User" is defined as a customer who frequently makes large property purchases. Hence, the activity that makes them important to the business is the user's total purchases within a certain period.

Assume that Old Republic maintains two tables and . table stores user related data - , , , . table keeps track of each purchase transaction - , , , .

Example Input:

Example Input:

We are interested in retrieving the top 5 "Power Users" for the last 3 months, ranked by their total purchase amount in descending order.

Answer:

This query first creates a temporary view that sums the purchase amounts for each user in the last 3 months. This result is then joined with the table to retrieve user details. Finally, we order the users by their total purchase amount in descending order and limit the result to the top 5 users.

To practice a similar VIP customer analysis question on DataLemur's free interactive SQL code editor, try this Microsoft Azure Cloud SQL Interview Question:

SQL Question 2: 2nd Highest Salary

Imagine there was a table of Old Republic employee salary data. Write a SQL query to find the 2nd highest salary amongst all the .

Old Republic Example Input:

Example Output:

Solve this question directly within the browser on DataLemur:

Answer:

You can find a step-by-step solution here: 2nd Highest Salary.

SQL Question 3: When considering database normalization, how do 1NF, 2NF, and 3NF differ from one another?

Normal forms are guidelines that are used to help design a relational database in a way that minimizes redundancy and ensures the integrity of the data. The 3 most commonly use normal forms are the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd normal forms. Here's a brief explanation of each:

• 1st Normal Form (1NF) is all about keeping it simple - each column should only have one value and there should be no repeating groups of data.

• 2nd Normal Form (2NF) is about organization - your database should already be in 1NF and all the non-key columns should depend on the primary key. This means that each non-key column should be completely dependent on the entire primary key, not just part of it.

• 3rd Normal Form (3NF) is about independence - if your database is already in 2NF, then all the non-key columns should not depend on each other. They should be self-sufficient and not rely on other non-key columns.

SQL Question 4: Calculate the Running Total of Insurance Claims Made by Different Clients

Old Republic is a property insurance company. Suppose they have a table that records all claims made by their clients. Each claim records the , , , and .

The company needs to analyze their risk exposure by calculating the running total of claim amount for each client over time. Can you write this SQL query?

Here's the sample data in the table:

Example Input:

The expected output is a table that lists the running total of claim amount for each client by the claim date.

Example Output:

Answer:

Here's a PostgreSQL query that uses a Window function to solve this problem:

This query calculates the running total of claim amount for each client (). The SUM function is used with an OVER clause to specify the window of rows for each calculation. The PARTITION BY clause divides the rows into groups, or partitions, that have the same . The ORDER BY clause within the OVER clause orders the rows in each partition by . The running total (also known as a cumulative sum) is then calculated for each row in order of claim_date within each client_id-grouped partition.

The final ORDER BY clause sorts the result set by and .

For more window function practice, try this Uber SQL problem on DataLemur's online SQL code editor:

SQL Question 5: What are the ACID properties in a DBMS?

To ensure the reliability and integrity of data, a database management system (DBMS) strives to maintain the ACID properties: Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability. To illustrate these concepts, consider the following examples of how ACID properties apply to banking transactions:

1. Atomicity: A transaction is either completed in full or not at all. For example, if a customer is transferring money between accounts, the transaction should either transfer the entire amount or none at all.

2. Consistency: A transaction is only allowed to complete if it follows all rules and constraints within the database. For example, if a customer is withdrawing money from an account, the transaction should only be allowed to proceed if there are sufficient funds available. Otherwise, the transaction is rejected.

3. Isolation: Concurrent transactions are kept separate from each other, so that the changes made by one transaction cannot be seen by another transaction until the first one is complete. This helps prevent conflicts, such as two customers attempting to withdraw money from the same account at the same time.

4. Durability: Once a transaction has been committed and completed, the changes made by the transaction are permanently stored in the database and will not be lost even if the database or system crashes. For example, if a customer makes a deposit, the transaction should be durable so that the deposit is not lost in the event of a system failure.

SQL Question 6: Filter Customer Records

Old Republic maintains a database of customers where they categorize each customer according to their status i.e 'active', 'inactive', 'blacklisted'. Additionally, Old Republic also maintains the state in the USA where each customer lives. For an upcoming marketing campaign, Old Republic wants to identify all active customers in a given list of states. Write a parameterised SQL query that Old Republic can use to filter these records.

Example Input:

Example Output for states "CA" and "FL":

Answer:

Here is a PostgreSQL query that addresses the problem,

In this query, we used the WHERE clause to filter on 'status' column for 'active' and then used the AND operator to make sure that we further filter down to only those customers who live in the states 'CA' and 'FL'. The IN keyword in SQL allows us to compare a value against a list of possible matches, and it returns true if the value matches one of the values in the list. Thus, we get only those records where customers are active and live in either 'CA' or 'FL'.

SQL Question 7: What's the difference between and ?

Both and are used to combine the results of two or more SELECT statements into a single result set.

However, only includes one instance of a duplicate, whereas includes duplicates.

SQL Question 8: Average Insurance Claim Amount

Old Republic is a company that provides various types of insurance policies. Now, you are asked to calculate the average claim amount submitted each month.

Consider the following two tables:

• table that contains all the issued policies
• table that records all the claims submitted by policyholders

Example Input:

Example Input:

The result should be a table showing the average claim amount submitted for each policy type per month.

Answer:

In PostgreSQL, the query would look like:

This query joins the policies table and the claims table using the policy_id. Then it groups the result by month (extracted from the claim submission date) and policy type to calculate the average claim amount. The result is ordered by month and policy type.

To practice a very similar question try this interactive Amazon Average Review Ratings Question which is similar for calculating average on a monthly basis or this JPMorgan Chase Card Launch Success Question which is similar for dealing with policies/claims vs. credit card issuance.

SQL Question 9: Filter Customer Records with LIKE Keyword

Old Republic has collected extensive customer information over the years. For analysis, you've been provided a table containing all the customer data. Your job is to find all the customers whose last names begin with "Mc", a common surname prefix.

The table contains the following columns:

• (integer): Unique identifier of the customer
• (text): Customer's first name
• (text): Customer's last name
• (text): Customer's email address
• (date): Date when the customer started doing business with Old Republic.

Example Input:

Example Output:

Answer:

This query uses the keyword and wildcard character to filter customers based on the condition that their last name starts with 'Mc'. The wildcard indicates any set of characters following 'Mc'. So, any last name beginning with 'Mc', followed by any combination of characters will be included in the result.

SQL Question 10: What is a SQL constraint?

The constraint makes sure that all values in a column are distinct. It is often paired with other constraints, like NOT NULL, to ensure that the data follows certain rules.

For example, say you were an analyst on the marketing team at Old Republic, and had access to a database on marketing campaigns:

In this example, the UNIQUE constraint is applied to the field to ensure that each campaign has a unique name. This helps to ensure the integrity of the data in the table and prevents errors that could occur if two campaigns had the same name.

Preparing For The Old Republic SQL Interview

The best way to prepare for a SQL interview, besides making sure you have strong SQL fundamentals, is to practice a ton of real SQL questions that were asked in recent job interviews. Beyond just solving the earlier Old Republic SQL interview questions, you should also solve the 200+ tricky sql questions on DataLemur which come from companies like Google, Microsoft and Silicon Valley startups.

Each exercise has hints to guide you, full answers and best of all, there's an online SQL coding environment so you can right in the browser run your query and have it graded.

To prep for the Old Republic SQL interview you can also be a great idea to practice interview questions from other insurance companies like:

• American Tower SQL questions
• Western & Southern SQL questions
• W.R. Berkley SQL questions
• Erie Insurance SQL questions

Dive into Old Republic's news archive and discover the latest developments shaping the insurance industry!

However, if your SQL coding skills are weak, forget about diving straight into solving questions – strengthen your SQL foundations with this SQL interview tutorial.

This tutorial covers SQL concepts such as handling date/timestamp data and cleaning text data – both of which show up often during Old Republic interviews.

Old Republic International Data Science Interview Tips

What Do Old Republic Data Science Interviews Cover?

In addition to SQL query questions, the other types of problems covered in the Old Republic Data Science Interview include:

• Statistics & AB Testing Questions
• Python Pandas or R Coding Questions
• Analytics and Product-Metrics Questions
• Machine Learning Questions
• Resume-Based Behavioral Questions

How To Prepare for Old Republic Data Science Interviews?

To prepare for the Old Republic Data Science interview have a firm understanding of the company's values and mission – this will be clutch for acing the behavioral interview. For the technical Data Science interviews, get ready by reading Ace the Data Science Interview. The book's got:

• 201 Interview Questions from FAANG, tech startups, and Wall Street
• A Refresher covering Product Analytics, SQL & ML
• Great Reviews (1000+ reviews, 4.5-star rating)