Insurers & Employment — Jacobson Group Study

Aon and The Jacobson Group have done a biannual survey of insurance employment for 15 years. It analyzes labor trends now and moving forward.

Greg Jacobson is the CEO of the Jacobson Group. He said 14% of the insurance companies his firm surveyed will be reducing the workforce in the next year.

Those reductions aren’t unexpected since many companies have been reducing staff for quite awhile.

Jeff Rieder of Aon said carriers have reduced staff considerably since the pandemic recovery began a couple of years ago. Half of the companies surveyed that do personal lines have cut staff sizes by an average of 5% in the last 12 months.

“I think that personal lines is driving a lot of … or maybe most of any of the reductions in staff,” Jacobson said. “We’re still seeing pretty steady hiring in commercial lines, and, in fact, maybe more hiring than anticipated in the life and health side of the business.”

• The study covers 293,000 employees
• That number is 18% of the total number of people working in the industry
• 83% of the 293,000 work in property and casualty

As for the companies:

• 79% think revenues will grow in the next 12 months
• However, just 52% say they’ll be adding staff
• 34% will keep staff levels where they are now

As to why the reductions are being made, automation is the top reason. Overstaffed is second. And a number of companies are taking a deeper look at what they cover. Several firms selling personal lines are pulling back on the number of policies they sell.

Companies taking a deeper look at their portfolios find they don’t need as many claims processors, human resource workers, people in finance and information technology. They’re finding many of those functions can be consolidated. The good news is how most being laid off can easily find work at other insurance companies.

Right now just over 1.6 million people work for carriers in the U.S. And if you move outside of the carriers, the industry is adding jobs and not losing them. In the past year 42,000 jobs have been added. That will bring the total to about 3.025 million people employed in the business.

This year — 2024 — is the first time the number has gone over three million.

“Insurance carrier employment is kind of steadying out, but we’re not seeing a slowdown in the total growth of the industry overall,” Jacobson said.

Here’s more from the survey:

• 64% of small insurance companies plan to add staff in the next year
• That’s 12% higher than medium-size companies
• It’s 23% higher than large firms
• 72% expect most employees to work a hybrid schedule in the next 6 months
• 6% say they’ll be changing their approach to in-office work
• The most growth in the next 12 months will be in claims, underwriting and technology
• The most difficult jobs to fill are actuarial, executive and analytics

Source link: Insurance Journal — https://bit.ly/4dlG9F4

The Jacobson Group - https://www.jacobsononline.com/