Insurers Finding It Increasingly Difficult to Fill Vacant Positions

By | February 20, 2020

  • February 20, 2020 at 9:25 am
    Tiger88 says:
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    No kidding…

    • February 24, 2020 at 2:25 pm
      Todd Mitchell says:
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      I disagree with my industry competitor the author of this article.
      I wish I could find job opportunities for the dozen of candidates whose resumes I have countrywide who have been downsized.
      Maybe talent acquisition could be a better partner, than competitor.
      Our industry is in need of talent, true. However, there has been a large increase in job opportunities over the past 2-3 years which is wonderful for our candidate pool to look into. The choices are many.

      The growth and expansion that companies have and will continue to experience is due in part to wanting and needing to increase their own footprint or the addition of new product lines. Organic growth is out. All carriers are seeking to survive whatever tactically takes.

      Recruiting on college campuses has only picked up in recent years. In the past five major carriers would have new training programs of 200 graduates or more. Our industry has become boring. It needs a boost of moral and mentoring. For each candidate that is willing to explore an opportunity, they have a second choice. Let us not forget that when a candidate resigns, their own employer pulls out all the stops.

      Publishing articles for self promotion does nothing to aid our industry. Education, challenge, mentoring, growth and excitement for the future of the Property & Casualty industry is what we need.
      Complaint department closed.

  • February 20, 2020 at 9:35 am
    Vox says:
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    At the College of Economics one learnt that when demand exceeds supply, the price (wages)
    goes up. If you offer enough money you’ll have “le deluge” of high quality applicants. Sorry, but that’s the immutable law of the universe. Nobody is exempt. We want quality and quantity of good applicants but they don’t grow on trees. We’re not the lowest paying industry on the block but plenty of other industries pay better. As to being an unfashionable industry, even I, the great and mighty, cannot change that, nor can you.

  • February 20, 2020 at 10:19 am
    BLOOMBERulechanGe to get on stage says:
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    It would be interesting to know which categories of jobs are vacant that insurers want to fill, and if/how it differs from prior years. The study started 11 years ago, so some history is available to measure any trend that may exist in vacancies. Are experienced positions for high- or mid-level managers becoming more difficult to fill? Or is it entry level positions that indicate a shift of college/ high school grads away to other industries?

    Of course, IT jobs are difficult to fill. It is especially so in an industry historically thought to be boring and dull. Wage wars will keep it so until the IT career field reaches a plateau after schools adapt their curriculum and counselors steer students toward that field.

    • February 20, 2020 at 10:24 am
      Rosenblatt says:
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      I agree with Polar’s comment in its entirety.

    • February 21, 2020 at 1:22 pm
      Nikki says:
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      Insurers have been most likely to increase technology staff consistently since the start of the study 11 years ago, with the exception of July 2015. This year’s study found that the greatest need across all functions was for experienced staff as opposed to management/executive or entry levels. The experience-level question is new this year, so it will be interesting to see how it trends in future studies.

  • February 20, 2020 at 10:21 am
    Wayne says:
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    So this is really an advertisement for the recruiting firm disguised as a news article?

  • February 20, 2020 at 11:10 am
    ralph says:
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    I’ve been working on the Insurer side for almost 21 years now. I like it.

    I don’t really have a point, just wanted to say that. Also, I sure could use a taco right about now…

    • February 20, 2020 at 1:12 pm
      JACK says:
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      Ralph- how was ur taco?

      • February 20, 2020 at 1:16 pm
        ralph says:
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        Jack–thank you for your concern. Unfortunately, tacos will have to wait until tomorrow, but it gives me something to look forward to, so I got that going for me. .Today I had to settle for a pre-made Italian hoagie and a salad which was mostly comprised of cheese and a few pieces of spinach so I can tell Mrs. Ralph that I ate a salad today.

        Cheers!

        • February 21, 2020 at 9:32 am
          Jack says:
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          Ralph- I feel your pain.

          • February 21, 2020 at 1:07 pm
            ralph says:
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            Update: Got my tacos. 10/10, would definitely do again.

  • February 20, 2020 at 11:22 am
    tried says:
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    Tried to work with Jacobson Gr. but never heard back once they found out my age – over 60.

    • February 20, 2020 at 7:39 pm
      knowall says:
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      They want young people; just change your date of graduation to make you younger and you’ll get an interview. (Being facetious). It doesn’t matter if you’re a genius, they want younger people. One recruiter told me an insurance company handed everyone 50 and over their walking papers in the fall and said if you don’t sign these you’ll be gone by January. The next year the CEO got up at a company meeting and proclaimed, “We’re going to fill this place up with young people!”

    • February 21, 2020 at 7:50 am
      PolarBeaRepeal says:
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      The comment above prompted me to visit Glassdoor, which is always interesting to read, despite employee bias. I do not endorse anything on it, due to employee bias. But the following review is interesting as regards the poster’s motivation to expose a potential source of positive bias:

      “The Jacobson Group asked staff to give a positive review.”
      Current Employee – Anonymous Employee
      Doesn’t Recommend
      Neutral Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      I have been working at The Jacobson Group full-time for more than a year

      Pros

      It’s a consistent and guaranteed paycheck.

      Cons

      Well for one, all staff was pretty much mandated to go on Glassdoor and give a positive review to offset any negative reviews given.

      Advice to Management

      Maybe value your employees, and you wouldn’t have to request that your current employees make false positive reviews on your behalf.

      So, what is the MOTIVE for the above review? Any guesses?

      Rather than complain about something specific, the alleged employee made a complaint about a management directive to post positive things on Glassdoor. IF that is true, you should see a change of ratings by employees from relatively negative to relatively / almost exclusively positive. Do you? I didn’t check their prior history on Glassdoor.

      Perhaps the disgruntled employee wasn’t valued highly because of his / her poor / mediocre performance?

      Perhaps he / she was caught posting negative comments on Glassdoor and was admonished for it?
      The key clue is Glassdoor’s history of comments on Jacobson Group prior to the above comment.
      Another clue is the PERCENTAGE of Jacobson employees making positive comments relative to the overall employee headcount, COMPARED TO the same percentage for a similar company (i.e. recruiting firm, USA, financial industry focus). If the two percentages are close, then there may be no bias and the disgruntled employee is probably lying. If there is a wide discrepancy in the two percentages, the poster may be correct.

      My next, separate comment will address the age discrimination point made above.

    • February 21, 2020 at 8:00 am
      PolarBeaRepeal says:
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      If Jacobson Group is indeed making discriminatory judgements in dealing with candidates, then they are contributing to the difficulty employers are faced with in hiring needed employees.

      This point actually ties in with the ACA repeal issue. IF employers are biased against older workers due to GROUP HEALTH INSURANCE BENEFIT PREMIUMS they pay, one of two solutions must be implemented; i.e. a legislative action to revise (‘flatten by age mix composition’) group health rates to discourage such illegal hiring practices, or stricter enforcement of age discrimination law violations by requiring reporting of average ages of workers by companies with greater than 25 employees. Of course, I prefer the former approach.

      Without fully detouring into a discussion of ACA repeal, I can say that one solution in some REPLACEMENT PLANS avoids the age discrimination issue as regards health benefit plan costs to employers. In turn, it eliminates that source of bias in hiring practices.

  • February 20, 2020 at 11:52 am
    Jack says:
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    “Recruitment difficulty is still increasing in the insurance industry, driven by continued (historically) low unemployment, mass retirements and job growth incited by modernization efforts,” Gregory Jacobson, co-chief executive officer of Jacobson, said in prepared remarks”

    These days you can tell how well the economy is doing by the average education level of the barista behind the counter at your local Starbucks.

  • February 20, 2020 at 12:27 pm
    An Actuary says:
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    I’ve been hearing about this insurance talent shortage for a decade now. Only started seeing any evidence of it in the last six months. It has become noticeably more difficult to recruit recently; speaking specifically for entry-level positions and experienced non-management positions.

  • February 20, 2020 at 1:13 pm
    Dodie says:
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    I think this article needs clarification…..Insurers Find It Increasingly Difficult to Fill Vacant Positions with candidates under the age of 50!! Ageism is real!!!

  • February 20, 2020 at 1:15 pm
    Bond says:
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    Farmers is hiring! According to the DM’s you can make over a 100K your first year on the job! Good luck.

    • February 20, 2020 at 2:45 pm
      Andrew says:
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      LOL. Thanks!

  • February 20, 2020 at 1:16 pm
    Dodie says:
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    This article should be re-named to “Insurers Find It Increase Difficult to Fill Vacant Positions with Candidates Under the Age of 50”. Ageism is real!

    • February 21, 2020 at 8:13 am
      PolarBeaRepeal says:
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      Nah! Ageism is just a hoax! Employers simply prefer younger employees because they are inexperienced and thus cost less to employ, so they… … oh, wait!!!

  • February 21, 2020 at 11:53 am
    blu lightning says:
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    Definitely there is a ton of ageism going on.
    Was at one of the major players when they laid me off as well as about 1500 fellow associates. Roughly 80% were over 40 and about half over 50. And before that they spent a year in all the public settings on how you need to build “brand you” so that you would be employable whenever you’d want to seek other employment as well as announcing about a dozen mentoring and future leader development programs. their intentions were fairly obvious
    Move onto a super regional and all is fine until new leadership starts doing the same thing. Still here after 6+ years but know that I would be hard pressed to be able to work until 65. Can’t even imagine 67 where I’m at now as much as I appreciate working here know that I’ll be moved out.
    Totally understand why carriers need to get younger as they are less expensive and more energetic and not to mention if you are 30 then your employer can count on 30+ years service from you and I wish my employer well in this effort.
    Just wish we could be allowed to work as long as our minds and bodies allow, ya know?

  • February 21, 2020 at 11:57 am
    Hector Projector says:
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    The people that are currently closing in on retirement age worked through the transition from manual processes to electronic processes. You can teach a new hire, even a bright and motivated person, that pushing this button makes this happen. But those of us who worked in the previous millennium know all the calculations the computers do when you push those buttons, and why the calculations need to be done. That’s why when you call customer service these days and it falls outside that box, they don’t know how to troubleshoot. And they don’t know when to make exceptions because they don’t know why the rule exists. Only the largest most profitable companies have enough money to hire dedicated people to train new hires so they have a chance. In smaller companies, the new hires wait around all day for their allotted 10 minutes to sit with the older knowledgeable people to try to absorb all they need to really succeed. And just because you’re knowledgeable doesn’t mean you are good at training. So the new hires quit or they get let go because they get blamed for not be proactive enough to figure things out on their own. Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime. Tell a man to go fish without showing him how, and he starves. Consumers are kind of getting use to not being able to get a reasonable answer from customer service. I see this issue getting worse before it gets better.

    • February 24, 2020 at 3:35 pm
      Manny V says:
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      You make a really good point. I think this problem is compounded by how specialized departments have become. Some areas have zero actual insurance knowledge, but they know finance or coding, and they are building tools and making projections but not understanding that insurance has it’s own unique flow.

      I currently work in our product management department, but I have a background in underwriting. You would not believe how many faulty ideas and projects I’ve been able to pause just because I know how work actual flows through our operation.

      We might not be able to transfer the knowledge of manual processes and calculations, but we can at least emphasize cross-training across divisions so that people understand the big picture in my opinion.

  • February 21, 2020 at 3:32 pm
    Luke Duke says:
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    IMHO the article is super simplified, and really offers nothing insightful. And yes, pertains to insurers. as one poster implied – what are the functional areas that are in need of people? This is a key point that is missing from these types of articles. As somebody over 50 who has been in the job market recently the ageism is absolutely real. So, if the issue is experience it flies in the face of ageism, unless by experience they mean 5-10 years. Other articles talk about entry level talent shortage. Which is it? both? You see, these types of articles omit key data points we all want to know. why is that?
    Another notion is that insurers have been vacillating between field, regional and HO staff. My point is that if you live in NY, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta or LA the jobs are there. But when the reduce field and regional presence it might be in a market with very few insurance jobs – so you leave the industry (seen it quite often). Don’t get me started on the impact of placement hubs….out

  • February 24, 2020 at 10:08 am
    Still Laughing says:
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    The problem is that insurance companies are miserable places to work. Management is risk-averse, old fashioned, bureaucratic,and hierarchical. Wait 5 years for a promotion. Treated like a cog in the wheel. Limited raises. Limited promotions.

    The CS kids particularly hate this type of environment. Old nasty systems being held together with chewing gum and baling wire. Spending all day fixing lousy outdated software. Mainframes and cobal. Inflexible management. A failure to update the systems and penny pinching. My son is graduating with an MS in CS from a top 20 school. He would not work for an insurance company no matter the salary.

    • February 26, 2020 at 7:07 am
      PolarBeaRepeal says:
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      The antiquated IT systems problem is perpetuated due to lack of initiative of IT pros to solve those problems without being told to do so by a CEO.

      I know of several companies which took the initiative to rebuild antiquated systems as a routine practice EVERY YEAR. They are thriving. Companies that ignore ‘support functions and systems’ are destined for the same fate as dinosaurs.

      • February 26, 2020 at 11:27 am
        Rosenblatt says:
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        While I agree there is a need to update antiquated IT systems (every year seems excessive though), the cost to do so is significant. I don’t know many companies that would allow IT to take on a multi-million dollar project without getting CEO or board approval first.

        • February 26, 2020 at 1:30 pm
          PolarBeaRepeal says:
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          You are ‘filling in blanks’ so as to disagree with my point.

          I did not imply an ENTIRE system is revamped every year. Only problematic segments that become antiquated or obsolete.

          Can you ‘rebuild’ a car, for example, without replacing all parts or any major parts? Of course you can.

          Seek out the definition of ‘rebuild’ on Al Gore’s Wonderful Internet without using ‘Goo-gul’ and you will be rewarded with greater knowledge.

          Some minor problems need not be taken up with the CEO. Again, you are assuming something I did not explicitly write…. in order to disagree.

          I believe that objective-driven disagreeing needs to become antiquated on this board.

          • February 26, 2020 at 2:20 pm
            Rosenblatt says:
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            If every year you rebuild a part of the car, there will come a time when the entire car will have been rebuilt and therefore won’t require constant yearly rebuilding because you already rebuilt it.

            If you replace your your data warehouse in 2020, your telephony system in 2021, your billing system in 2021 and your claims system in 2022 and your new business system in 2023 (assuming it’s not one CRM project), your servers in 2024 … are you going to replace your data warehouse again in 2025, your telephony again in 2026, etc?

          • February 26, 2020 at 4:27 pm
            CC says:
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            Polar – You know full well the colloquial definition of “rebuild”. Stop trying to pick a fight where there isn’t one. It is exhausting to watch.

  • February 24, 2020 at 10:48 am
    Reagan says:
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    I can say that I work for a company that is trying to be cool and hip. They have forced a culture of de siloed cross collaboration among a mostly young staff. Average age is about 28 here. I can tell you that even with new software and millenials working and building these systems, there are tons of problems. There is also an underground culture that abhors the fake culture that you MUST adhere to here. This applies to young and old alike. The turnover is astounding. I worked at the “miserable old companies” in the past and saw little to no turnover

    • February 25, 2020 at 8:59 pm
      knowall says:
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      I would say that insurance company management needs to be a least 40 % done in the field. If you have young people who aren’t being partnered with senior experience, coupled with field time/experience, you’ll encounter a lot of ‘wheel spinning.’ Management just by email doesn’t work in the insurance industry; you need to roll up your sleeves and get dirty out in the field. Sit with your agents while they take care of their clients and you’ll learn a lot. Go with agents on their physical inspections and see what they are up against, etc…

    • March 4, 2020 at 4:45 pm
      CC says:
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      What are they doing to try to be cool and hip?

  • February 24, 2020 at 11:52 am
    Risk Prof says:
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    I consistently HEAR two things: The talent gap in the industry and a lack of diversity.

    Here is what I OBSERVE:

    New Mexico State University recently had a Career Fair, and only three insurers showed up, even though insurers are constantly asked to recruit on campus. And yes, NMSU offers studies in Risk Management, Insurance, and Actuarial Science.

    NMSU’s student body is over 50% Hispanic and many are bilingual and bi-cultural, with a number of other ethnic groups among the student population as well. About 10% of the population of New Mexico is Native American.

  • February 26, 2020 at 2:04 pm
    ins says:
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    Yep! I recently applied for two jobs that were a perfect fit! They were excited until they got my full resume’, calculated my age (north of 55), and went radio silent! LOL. Good thing I have a job.
    30 years ago a boss was hesitant to hire a woman who was 59. I asked, “If you were guaranteed this person would hit the ground running in productivity and give you a stellar 5 years, would you be happy?” He said he’d kill for that from ANY of his current employees, let alone a new hire. He hired her and she became his core employee for 7 years until HE retired. He felt like a genius.

    • February 27, 2020 at 2:11 pm
      Andrew says:
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      You rock. And I mean that literally and figuratively.

    • March 2, 2020 at 10:29 am
      Yep says:
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      Wow a boss with a brain!



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