Briefing: FCA right to put diverse talent attraction onus on employers

Sometimes I find it hard to believe I started in this industry almost four decades ago. Way back in the mid-80s in fact – an age of excess, Filofaxes, big hair and even bigger mobile phones. Yet, despite the nation having the first female prime minister, the insurance industry did not feel like a great place to be for a woman with aspirations.

Thankfully, lots has changed since then. Today, we see more women in leading positions across the industry. But the truth is the journey towards a more diverse and inclusive sector is never done.

We all know people in the sector are not getting any younger – we are going to need to attract new talent, with fresh ideas and different outlooks if we are to make sure the industry stays relevant and continues to provide clients with the products they want.

So, why does this month’s column find me in a reflective mood?

On 8 March 2025, we celebrated International Women’s Day and it made me wonder – will we be seeing the end of such celebrations?

We are all aware that the mood music seems to be shifting away from diversity and inclusion (D&I). Not least after the FCA’s decision not to introduce new D&I requirements, which it confirmed on 12 March 2025.

While this mentality is worrying, it is also worth taking a step back. Often, D&I is reduced to a toxic debate around tick boxes and quotas – I’ve never felt that this is what D&I is really about. I’d hate for anyone that meets me to wonder if I got my job on merit or because I was merely helping fulfil a quota.

To my mind, D&I has always been much more than just doing what’s morally right. It’s about cold, hard commercial necessity. With evolving customer demands, a changing geopolitical landscape and the pace of technological advancements – especially artificial intelligence (AI) – we must remain agile, innovating and improving.

We know diverse teams make for better, quicker decision-making, helping to both reduce blind spots and produce results in enhanced problem solving. Whatever the discipline – underwriting, claims, broking – a homogenous team may struggle to see the risks and opportunities impacting underrepresented communities.

By prioritising diversity, we can ensure our products and services meet the needs of all and not just a select few.

There’s also an AI angle to this that we need to think about.

While there are many studies about the advantages of using AI to remove unconscious bias, there is a convincing counter argument about the risk of algorithmic bias reinforcing inequalities.

I’m far from an AI expert, but the logic that AI models – which are trained using historical datasets – could include historical prejudices or unrepresented samples would certainly support the theory of algorithmic bias. Without diverse human oversight, we just perpetuate those outcomes.

Onus on employers

I wonder if there’s a better way to reframe this debate. And the clue might be in a word I used in my opening paragraph – aspiration. What do you want to be? What do you want to achieve? How can you get there?

D&I was not a thing back in the 80s, but the people I saw who went far – whatever their gender or background – all had one thing in common. They all believed they could make a difference. The status quo was not about to stop them.

This sounds inspirational, but what does it mean in practice? For me, it means we have to stop obsessing about numbers and start to focus on strategy. We need to be crystal clear from the outset as businesses and individuals about what our aspirations are. We need to be equally clear on the measures and steps we need to take to get there.

The FCA’s decision not to introduce new D&I requirements feels significant – but not seismic. By reducing the regulatory burden around D&I, the FCA is actually putting the onus around talent attraction back where it belongs – on the employer.

Just because the FCA has stepped back from setting formal D&I requirements does not mean businesses and individuals should refrain from undertaking steps to bolster diversity. Why would we stop doing what is morally and commercially right? It just means that now there is no one to hold our hand and we must be even more focused on the task at hand.

Inclusivity beacon

The 80s produced some great music, some great TV and some great movies. But if I found a time machine, I would not go back there.

As an industry, we have made a huge amount of progress since then and today, we’re lucky to work in an incredible sector doing amazing things that changes people’s lives for the better. But underrepresentation remains a challenge.

If we’re going to tackle this, we cannot let the mood music sway our resolve. We must be a beacon for diverse, aspirational people – not because we are told to, but because these individuals make us better as an industry.