New business models and a soft market have changed the relative value of skills in insurance
Behind the headlines of job cuts and redundancies, a change is going on within the insurance workforce. The prolonged soft market, economic slump and dynamic changes in distribution models are bringing new and different skill sets to the fore.
Towergate group head of organisation and development Fiona Andrews says: “We’ve never had such a prolonged market cycle coinciding with an economic downturn. Looking at the skills required in the environment we’re in at the moment, there’s a very heavy emphasis on needing to be extremely good at selling because we need to sell new business and to retain customers.”
Pressure on margin is also driving demand for specific technical capabilities, including actuarial and claims handling. The Miles Partnership specialist insurance headhunter Ian Lazarus says: “The relative value of different skills has changed. Claims, pricing, actuaries - people now understand how important they are. Good claims handling can knock millions off your expense ratio. As for actuarial skills, in the old days in non-life there were perhaps one or even no actuaries.”
In the corporate market, new attitudes to risk have seen a demand for more creative thinking of the sort not normally associated with insurance.
Miller chief executive Graham Clarke says: “Risk is higher on the agenda since the credit crisis. We now talk to serious people at board level who want to engage at a much deeper level on emerging risks. It’s about creativity and problem-solving. If you’re listening and trying to understand the problems and risks that a 21st century business is exposed to, and looking at risk retention and risk transfer, there’s a lot more analytical work.”
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