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A poll of workers recently hired into the property/casualty insurance industry conducted during a Travelers Institute webinar last month produced some unusual results, surprising one webinar panelist who leads a key business segment at Travelers.

Only 20 percent of responding webinar attendees who were hired into the industry in the last five years said they factored company “mission and purpose” into their employment choices, and just about one-third said they valued “engaging and interesting work,” according to the in-webinar poll.

Competitive compensation and benefits topped the list (63 percent) that also had more respondents choosing work-life balance (59 percent) and positive company culture (50 percent). Culture edged out the final factor on the list, training opportunities and career development. (48 percent).

“I am probably not qualified to answer since I didn’t join the industry in the last five years,…but I would have checked all of the above,” said Michael Klein, president of Personal Å©·òµ¼º½ at Travelers, who has been with the company for 35 years. “I’m interested in … the relatively low response on alignment with company mission and purpose,” he said. “I think our industry has a very noble mission and purpose,” he said, expressing the hope that the webinar conversation to follow would shed some light on the lack of interest in this factor revealed by the quick-response survey. Klein, who started his career as an actuary, did not reveal how many attendees responded to the poll, nor did he indicate that the results were statistically significant.

In fact, Klein and co-panelists Denise Perlman, chief executive officer within Aon’s North America middle market segment, and Robert Hartwig, associate clinical professor of finance and director of the Risk and Uncertainty Management Center at the University of South Carolina, offered repeated examples of the purpose-driven and interesting career paths available in the P/C insurance industry at various points during the webinar.

Perlman offered the first reaction to the polling results, stating that they “aligned perfectly” with an Aon survey of talent globally (across industries), which put company culture, work-life balance, and attractive compensation and benefits “definitely on top of the list.” (Most of the respondent population, 89 percent, of an survey, however, consisted of employees who have been in their current roles for two or more years, and only 25 percent identified as being associates or entry-level staffers. The Aon survey was linked to an online description of the Travelers webinar as a resource for attendees.)

It was Hartwig who inadvertently shed light on students’ greater interest in compensation vs. company mission as he answered a totally different question. The question: How can small independent insurance agencies attract emerging talent?

“A student generally can’t focus beyond the first two or three years” past graduation, Hartwig said, summing up an answer that began with his report that the small agency segment is the one “in which we place the absolute fewest students.”

“It is very challenging for independent agencies to attract a new student right out of college unless there’s already a family connection,” he said. Based on his frequent interactions with university juniors and seniors who are filled with uncertainty and anxiety about what lies ahead, Hartwig said, “I’ll be blunt, part of it has to do with the compensation structure that we see for new agents. It winds up not being competitive oftentimes to a major carrier or a midsize carrier or broker. And that winds up being the obstacle. Particularly if a student might have something like some student debt to service when they get out…”

“If I had to give some advice, I would say get here early and get here often….The student is going to need to experience the independent agency or a captive agency environment, and that will give you the best chance of capturing that student upon graduation. Because if not, you’re at an uncertainty disadvantage, primarily emanating from the compensation—even though the sky is ultimately the limit in terms of compensation in an independent agency.”

Putting student debt repayment concerns aside, Hartwig and the other panelists more frequently spoke about the value of internships and training and about ways of helping students make a connection to the important role of the insurance industry.

“A No. 1 concern for students would be that they’re not just going to be brought on board and left in a cubicle by themselves.” – Hartwig

Giving his first take on Travelers’ webinar poll, Hartwig focused on the 48 percent who selected training opportunities and career development as a factor in selecting an insurance industry job. “Since I’m dealing primarily with students as opposed to people who’ve been in the industry perhaps for as long as five years, I would say that a No. 1 concern for students would be that they’re not just going to be brought on board and left in a cubicle by themselves,” he reported. “They need to know that they’re going to be mentored and appropriately trained and that there’s going to be someone there…who has their back and [will] help shepherd them along in the organization, particularly in a large organization. They might be moving to a new city. They don’t know anybody…”

“When you’re a 22-year-old about to graduate, that is a concern,” he said.

Perlman stressed the importance of “providing clear pathways for career advancement” in response to a question Moderator Jessica Kearney, vice president, Public Policy, Travelers Institute, posed to help audience members seeking practical advice for engaging and retaining talent. “Give job seekers an idea of what their career within the organization could look like, and what broader opportunities exist in other pockets of the organization,” she said.

“Mentorship programs I think are key. Education, continuous learning, ongoing education, and giving some of this great talent opportunities to take on new responsibilities” will help to keep them in the industry, she said.

An Industry With Purpose—and Interesting Work

Hartwig and Klein advanced several ideas about why the industry is “interesting” and “purpose-oriented,” in spite of the lower rank those two factors garnered during the informal audience poll. (See related sidebar for results of a more formal survey of 400-plus students.)

“At least once a week I will rip something from the headlines and it becomes part of the class,” Hartwig said. For example, the tragic Air India crash earlier this year prompted an assignment. “They have to outline the problem. What are the insurance consequences associated with it? And what are solutions for trying to rectify this problem going forward?”

“That is a risk management issue…Hundreds of people died, and we’re talking about very valuable aircraft and all kinds of liability concerns,” he said. “This is a real thing that happens” where insurers and risk managers can make a difference, he said. “This isn’t just about sitting down and saying, ‘OK, on the fourth line of a declarations page, what does it say about the symbol number on a commercial auto policy?’ I don’t think that’s the way to get anybody interested” in insurance,” he said.

Klein gave his take from a carrier’s perspective, responding to a question from Kearney about the insurance industry’s best-kept secrets. “Back to that polling question around alignment with mission and purpose, I actually think that our industry is often misperceived, misunderstood, and unfortunately, I think too often, much maligned. At the end of the day, this business is about providing protection and enabling progress. And I think the headlines often depict an industry that collects premium and doesn’t pay claims.”

“If you’re going to be with a company that’s going to crash and burn, it’s good to do it when you’re 23 years old,” Hartwig said.

“We absolutely do collect premium. The good news is most of our customers, in a given year, don’t have a claim. That’s actually a good thing. …When folks do have a claim, we help them fix things and put their lives back together. At Travelers, in personal insurance, we do that more than a million times a year, claims large to small—[the ones] that get headlines like the California wildfires and claims that don’t, like a lost engagement ring.”

He continued, “The thing that often gets overlooked is the progress, the growth, the commerce that we enable,” going on to highlight the 150,000 personal articles floaters Travelers writes, most commonly for engagement rings—something that a young person is likely to have spent two months’ salary on. “That’s a lot of money,” he said, referring to the peace of mind that insurers give for people purchasing jewelry, autos and homes. “While insurance is generally required to make an auto purchase and generally required to get a mortgage, I think most people wouldn’t make [those] huge capital investment[s] without having the peace of mind that comes with the fact that there’s going to be protection for that asset.”

“If people take a step back and think about our industry, it probably aligns with a lot of people’s values around helping others and enabling progress,” he concluded.

Later during the webinar, he shared a story about a time when he was doing community volunteer work. “I’m literally scooping mulch out of a wheelbarrow with this young man, who was the executive director of a different nonprofit …And I come to find out he’s actually a graduate of the , spent some time in the industry and then moved on to take on a community leadership role,” he said. “That’s more than a win-win. It’s like a win times eight” for Travelers Edge, which he described as a program funding the college education of students from traditionally underserved communities with an interest in a career in financial services.

“You would assume that one of the benefits of [the program] is that many of those folks intern with Travelers” and go to work there once they graduates. “We’ve had roughly 150 students do that. But that’s not actually the majority of students that have gone through the program,” he said. “Some could look at that as a failure—as not a good return on investment. I would argue quite the opposite…because investing into future talent for this industry benefits the talent, and benefits the organizations and the industry over time,” he said. He also referred to time he and Perlman have spent participating on the board of Gamma Iota Sigma, an international professional student association dedicated to promoting, sustaining and growing student interest in careers with an insurance risk management and actuarial science.

During the Travelers Institute webinar, “, VP Kearney shared the results of a Gamma Iota Sigma annual survey conducted with over 400 students and recent graduates from 41 colleges and universities last year.

• 48% said that a professor introduced them to the insurance industry.
• 43% believe a company’s culture differentiates it more than industry segment or specialty, but only 18% prioritize that.
• 84% said mentorship is very important or extremely important.

Klein is immediate past president of Gamma. Perlman, a past board member, offered a broker’s take on industry mission and purpose. “I was there with a client when they opened their business. We [Aon] were part of making sure they had the right insurance protection to do that. And we’re also there for clients in a time of loss,” said Perlman, who started her career as an intern in her junior year of college.

Coaxed by Klein to talk about the advice and resources that brokers provide to clients to manage risk and prevent loss from disasters, Perlman said, “That’s our job—to be their strategic adviser and to help them understand how to mitigate risk, and if something happens, what to do about it and how to make their operations safer and their talent happier.”

She added, “The great thing about this industry is there are so many different opportunities—on the company side, the reinsurance side, the broking side. It’s unlimited.”

Career Advice from a Professor

For students, the insurance job market has become more limited, according to Hartwig, a past chief economist for the Å©·òµ¼º½ Information Institute. “Rather than three open positions for every one applicant, it’s [more like] one-to-one, back to the way it was kind of before COVID.” Aggregate data across industries reveals that it is taking new graduates longer to lock down any type of position.

“This is one facet of a larger [business] response to a lot of economic uncertainty. They’re not making large investments, new capital expenditures. And one of those large, new investments and expenditures they’re taking longer to make is in new employees. They just don’t totally have a good sense of where the economy is necessarily headed, what their opportunities are. And that is taking a little bit of a toll on the labor markets right now,” he said.

As a result, “students are going to have to work somewhat harder this coming year, both for full-time career opportunities when they graduate next May, as well as for internship opportunities,” said Hartwig.

Offering some words of advice, he said, “They need to be better prepared. They need to be able to better distinguish themselves.” And to increase their odds, they need to avoid a mistake he sees students repeatedly make. “I guarantee this will happen 10 times this year. They’ll tell me they only want to work in Baltimore.”

“Once you’ve told me that, you’ve eliminated 98 percent of the opportunities for me to help you,” he said, advising students to think more broadly geographically, more broadly about the type of company they want to work for, and the type of position.

Hartwig understands the angst of his young students, “It’s a big commitment to sign on to your first job in a place you might not know.” Still, he advises, “If you go to a Travelers, go anywhere, and you do a bang-up job, don’t burn any bridges, [then] you can build a very solid career.”

Referring to the fact that in spite of the industry’s embrace of technology, “insurance is still a relationship-based business,” he said that as students’ careers progress years down the road, “those first three years at a Travelers” or some other carrier will be valuable on their resumes.

Even an InsurTech can be a good career launch point, he suggests to students that hesitate to accept offers from such startups. “If you’re going to be with a company that’s going to crash and burn, it’s good to do it when you’re 23 years old,” Hartwig said.

Klein added a similar piece of advice. “Early in your career is a great opportunity to dig in, do the work, and find out if you like it… If you’re going to change your mind, changing it early is probably better than waking up 35 years later and saying I wish I had had done something different.”

Insurers vs. Brokers—and every other industry

Klein said the job market is “competitive in both directions.”

“We hired hundreds of interns here at Travelers this summer, about 500. We had thousands of applicants. Think 10-plus applicants for every position…”

“On the other hand, increasingly we’re not only competing with other insurance companies in our space for that talent, we’re competing with Aon and other brokers for some of the same skills.” In addition, risk management and insurance students look beyond the traditional insurance industry space for jobs, he said, referring to a report Hartwig shared about seeing numerous students take the title “underwriter” in a position at a bank, assessing risk.

Klein recalled that when he started at Travelers, the company had only four training programs—actuarial science, underwriting, claims and risk management—that helped new talent move from school into the business. “If you had gone to our intern symposium at the end of last month, you would’ve seen those and [programs for] data scientists, and business intelligence and analytics leaders, and the technology program, and an operations and operational effectiveness program, and an HR program.”

Travelers is not alone in the industry in developing those types of programs to recruit a broader pool of recruits. “In many cases, those skill sets are more generalizable across multiple industries, which is causing us to compete for talent with people we didn’t compete with before.”

That includes brokers.

“I think back to the days when most of the quantitative data analysis was really the domain of the insurers, less the domain of the brokers. These days, there’s as much data and analytic horsepower at a place like Aon as there is at a place like Travelers,” he said. “We’re competing for some of those same resources.”

Perlman said that brokers are willing to recommend talent to underwriters and reinsurers when they identify promising candidates that aren’t exactly the right fit for them. The goal is to find “the right place for some really good talent to make sure we bring them into this industry.”

She noted at one point that Aon has a two-year full-time paid apprenticeship program combining education and work experience. The practical hands-on experience can offer a test environment for candidates to see if the business is something they like. And Aon can assess the value of the candidates, she said.

Topics Talent Training Development