Tackling ‘lack of understanding’ about insurance is vital in war for talent

The war for talent in the insurance sector is a well understood issue at this point – while the industry’s workforce is ageing, attracting younger talent into the fold has remained a challenge.

For example, research published by RSA in September 2023 found that 26% of workers in the UK insurance market were over 50 years old and planning to retire soon.

Compounding the issue is the reputation of the insurance sector as an unattractive place to work – in the Insurance Times Talent Development Report 2024, created in partnership with RSA, 80% of 240 surveyed brokers said that industry reputation and attractiveness were the main barrier to attracting talent.

Taken to the conclusion, these issues could leave the insurance industry with not enough talented staff to serve customers properly in the medium to long term.

The war for talent was a prominent issue on the agenda of Insurance Times’ exclusive Broker CEO Forum event on 14 November 2024, when chief executives from UK brokers large and small gathered to discuss issues pertinent to the market.

During a panel session dedicated to the challenge of attracting talent to the sector, one such chief executive explained: “As a sector, we still have a perception problem and that’s the bit we have to address.

“Insurance is a really exciting, innovative industry but we don’t do ourselves any favours because of the perception – what we need to do is all work together to figure out how we let people know that this [industry] is a great place to work.”

Another broker chief executive, who also appeared on the panel, added: “There is a fundamental lack of cultural understanding about what an insurance broker does, which an industry like banking doesn’t deal with.

“The only real problem we have is the perception about insurance, because that perception is totally removed from the reality of how exciting this industry can be to work in.”

Attractive solutions 

In terms of how these challenges could be overcome in a way that would make the sector more attractive to younger professionals, one panel member said: ”Time and time again in the market, I see that we often design our propositions in silos and don’t actually ask the person we’re trying to attract what they are looking for.

“There is a need for reimagined and redreamed initiatives that are created in collaboration with those people we want to join our industry and our organisations, because then we’re actually listening to them.” 

This panellist added that the insurance sector sometimes alienated itself from potentially interested young people by presenting itself as inherently complex and arcane, when there could be more focus put on the fulfilling careers many people enjoy within the sector. 

One suggestion received positively by the panel was to remarket a career in insurance as a career in risk instead. 

An attendee to the panel explained: ”The problem is that insurance has never been the first destination for someone leaving school. Part of that might be because insurance is a very boring word, whereas using the term risk and talking about managing risk has that exciting appeal that actually reflects the better points of working within the sector.” 

Sticking around

While there are issues for the insurance sector to overcome where improving its reputation is concerned, attendees to the Broker CEO Forum also noted that attracting talent was not the only challenge – retaining talented individuals once they are in the door is vital. 

One chief executive in the audience for the panel lamented the decline of structured training programmes for new joiners to the industry, which they saw as common 20 years ago.

They said: ”We’ve been talking about the war for talent for a long time now, but we have ourselves partly to blame because there are far fewer training schemes for new joiners now. 

“Aspirations have also changed for graduates and they generally don’t want to helping out in the mail room, for example, but we have to get back to thinking about how we build up people’s careers by building skills and knowledge so that they stick around.” 

One of the panellists added that culture was incredibly important to the talent retention challenge. They explained: ”We have the advantage of serving a marketplace and having access to lots of people across a value chain, so our grads and apprentices do have the opportunity to then go out into the market and see different versions of insurance. 

“But, there also has to be a path to advancement for people and things like mentorship are vital to that – I’ve left brokers before because I got so disheartened with the lack of people like me in management, so that has to be a big piece for the sector to consider.”