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2025 Insurance Talent Trends Guide

From embracing AI to creating personalized onboarding experiences, we’re expecting to see a number of interesting trends impact the insurance industry in the next year.

Download our latest guide to learn the trends we anticipate will have the most impact on the insurance industry in 2025.

Employee Engagement: Getting Back to Basics for 2025

Discover ways to combat quiet quitting. Strong employee engagement impacts your company’s ability to meet its goals, while also creating a motivating and positive atmosphere for your employees.

Download the whitepaper to explore how revisiting the core principles of employee engagement can reignite team morale and drive lasting success. 

Celebrating a Decade of the Insurance Careers Movement: Join Us

As we kick off the 10th Annual Insurance Careers Month, The Jacobson Group is reflecting on the remarkable journey of the Insurance Careers Movement (ICM) – which has grown from a shared vision among its founding organizations to a global grassroots initiative.

Read our blog post to learn more about ICM and how you and your organization can get involved.

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A Great Milestone

A Great Milestone

We made an exciting announcement this week that I consider a great milestone in our firm’s history. The Jacobson Group is going to merge with ejsSearch, the London-based insurance executive search firm specializing in assignments in the London, broader European and international markets. Through this union, we will become the leading international search and staffing firm that exclusively serves the insurance industry. We’re excited for this opportunity to provide the industry with this essential continuity in cross-border search. If you are interested in more information, view our press release here. This merger will make us a truly global company and we are adding some immense talent to our team. Barbara Schönhofer, chief executive of ejs, will join the Jacobson executive management team as senior vice president and chief executive officer, global executive search. We look forward to Barbara’s dynamic leadership and feel it embodies the same values we expect from our leaders. We are equally excited to welcome the rest of the ejs staff. This is the next step in our evolution – but not even close to the last!

Semi-Annual Labor Market Study: The Results Are In!

The Jacobson Group and Ward Group have completed another iteration of the Semi-Annual Insurance Labor Market Study and the results offer a telling picture of our industry’s current landscape. Eighty-six percent of companies polled expect to grow revenue in the next 12 months. Likewise, 56 percent of respondents intend to increase staff. Both of these figures are at the highest levels reported since the study’s inception in 2009. The primary reason to grow staff during the next 12 months continues to be an increase in business volume, with 47 percent of companies listing this as a reason to hire. Coming in second, with 46 percent of respondents, is expansion. It seems there are some exciting developments coming down the pipeline at many organizations! This return to hiring, along with a steadily decreasing unemployment rate, do promise a difficult recruiting climate. All functional disciplines were rated by respondents of the study as “moderately difficult to fill.” As demand increases, the difficulty-to-fill measure is expected to continue its incline. While insurers will continue to be faced with recruiting challenges ahead, the outlook is mostly positive for our industry. I invite you to view the full results summary for a closer look at these projections. If you missed the webinar, you can view the webcast here. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you would like more information about the study.

PULSE of the Labor Market in 2013

The year’s first issue of PULSE of the Labor Market, the monthly supplement to our quarterly newsletter, is out and you can view it here. While the BLS reported an addition of 2,400 jobs in the insurance industry in December, the unemployment rate crept up to 3.7 percent. The average industry unemployment rate in 2012 was 4.4 percent, well below 2011’s average of 5.8 percent and 2010’s average of 6.2 percent. This downward trend can be expected to continue throughout 2013. Temporary employment for the industry, which is not figured into BLS data, is also expected to be on the upswing this year. The 2013 labor market promises a strong emphasis on talent as the differentiator in an increasingly competitive market. Employers will strive to attract and retain the brightest and best to tackle the skills gap and embark on growth initiatives. On a related note, last week marked the beginning of the January ’13 iteration of our Semi-Annual Insurance Labor Outlook Study. This data gathered in the study will help us further understand what we can expect to see happening in the labor market, as well as this year’s hiring plans for insurers across all sectors. All industry organizations are invited to participate in the survey and receive the results free of charge. You can find more information on the survey here. I am excited to see the outcome of this year’s survey and to give my take on the results. Best wishes for a prosperous 2013!

The ROI of Succession Planning

At the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) Operations Conference this year, we moderated a panel on a topic that we here at Jacobson hold close: succession planning. We brought a dynamic panel of CEOs and a board chairman together to share their personal insights gleaned from all stages of the succession process. The speakers provided valuable insights from their own succession journeys. Perhaps one of the most interesting takeaways shared came from an audience member. Lee Webster, Director of Human Resources Standards with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), brought up the ROI of succession planning—certainly an issue that deserves a deeper look. The measurement of the ROI of a succession planning process is a vital component that allows organizations to evaluate and adjust. As Webster said, “The succession planning dialogue must include a progressive and dynamic component on the effect of choosing the right leader, as well as the effect the leader has on the capital value of the enterprise. We must create the opportunity to look at risks from a human capital point of view. When we focus on the return, we can begin to account for how well we are doing.” This is certainly interesting food for thought for the insurance industry as the industry faces up to the challenge of an aging workforce. As the industry strengthens its talent pipeline, we must keep the end goal in sight by continuously measuring the value of our succession and engagement strategies.

Impacts of the Supreme Court Validation of PPACA

With its ruling released on June 28th, the Supreme Court has, absent an unexpected legislative repeal, cemented the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) into U.S. law. Now that the judicial challenges have run their course, there is some clarity around the impacts this law will create. In the short term, I view this development as moderately positive for the health Insurance industry and perhaps even stimulative for the health insurance labor market. Over the past several months, as the uncertainty around the Supreme Court decision grew, I have seen countless health insurance decision makers put developmental projects on hold until some clarity emerged. I now expect a bit of a dam break in the flow of these projects. Additionally, health insurers can now plan for an expected increase in covered lives due to the survival of the “individual mandate tax.” Together, these impetuses should lead to a modest, industry-wide uptick in hiring over the near term. Moreover, the industry avoided what would have been a major negative shock had the Supreme Court struck down the individual mandate but upheld other aspects of the law including the “Guaranteed Issue” provision. My view of the longer term impacts of this law is less sanguine. The health care crisis in this country is a crisis of cost, not one of evil health insurers who need to be reigned in via a central authority dictating the terms of their market. Throughout history, central control of markets has invariably led to mal-investment, skewed markets and unintended consequences. I have argued since 2009 that the health care cost crisis needed to be solved with market friendly reforms that took advantage of the immense power of capitalistic choice (aka consumerism). One can make a strong argument that the seeds of our cost crisis were planted by the very body that passed the PPACA, as the endless stream of Washington generated coverage mandates, managed care restrictions and cost-less (to the consumer) benefit increases led to an economic imbalance that ensured consistent health care cost inflation. The long-term consequences of yet more market interference is not in doubt. We will see continued and likely accelerated, cost escalation. Further, the medium to long-term marginal impact of this law on the labor market will clearly be negative. For all the talk of job creation, every high school economics student understands that an increase in tax decreases economic activity. In this case we have both an individual tax and a tax on employment – and one that will disproportionately impact the segment of the economy most responsible for job growth: small businesses. All that said, this is not the first time that lawmakers – in their zest to improve the conditions of their constituents – have passed counter-productive laws. Even with the PPACA, the United States continues to have one of the most supportive economies for entrepreneurship and innovation. I expect that our health insurance organizations and other businesses will learn to innovate within the framework of the new law and our economy will continue to outpace the rest of the developed world.

40 Insurance Labor Market Stats

This year, The Jacobson Group is celebrating a remarkable milestone: our 40th anniversary. My father founded the company in 1971 to provide the niche professional recruiting services that the insurance industry required. Through aggressive expansion in the following years, the company accommodated client needs and widened its scope of services to include executive search, work-at-home and onsite project support, and temporary and consultant-level staffing. We look forward to many more years of success and innovation as we grow and transform to solve our clients’ business challenges through strategic human capital solutions and operational support. In the spirit of our 40th anniversary, I wanted to share an infographic detailing 40 current stats for the insurance labor market. Below is just a preview; click it to view the full infographic.

On Death and Taxes

On Death and Taxes

Our business at times offers great insight into the concerns of the industry. Unusually large numbers of ‘permanent’ job openings in a specific area across multiple organizations usually mark a shift in industry trends. For instance, the growth of the use of predictive modeling, primarily in P&C personal lines, led to an emphasis on recruiting financial and data mining expertise. Unusually large numbers of temporary positions often mark an industry-wide reaction to an event or series of events. The latest trend in the life insurance industry is clearly related to a number of state government actions known collectively as “Death Master” settlements. In a bid to raise revenues, many states have aggressively pursued “unclaimed property” on behalf of their citizens. Most states have taken the stance that they can collect such property and then spend the money on whatever budget shortfalls they have. If the property is later claimed by the rightful owner, the states make good on the claim. However, in most cases this never happens (I have seen different numbers on this, but it seems like the high end for return rates is about 30 percent) and the funds become part of the state’s general fund. As we all know, states have become more and more desperate to raise revenue to avoid benefit cuts. The latest hunting ground has proven to be unpaid life insurance policies. Just this week, MetLife agreed to a $500M settlement with California, North Dakota, Florida, Illinois, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania to settle claims by these states that MetLife failed to use the Death Master index to identify deceased policyholders. This is simply the latest (and largest) in a line of these settlements going back to the Manulife settlement in April of last year and including the well-publicized Prudential Life settlement in February of this year. I expect more to come. As part of these settlements, the insurers are typically required to perform quite a bit of research on beneficiaries, and this is where we have seen tremendous demand. Many of our clients are now trying to get ahead of the curve and are instituting procedures similar to those required in the Prudential settlement. Others are simply reacting to state investigations. In either case, the demands upon the claims departments are often overwhelming.

Consequences of the ICD-10 Delay

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced last week that they intend to push back the ICD-10 healthcare compliance deadline by one year to October 2014. Naturally, this news was greeted with mixed reactions. Many say the delay is necessary as organizations struggle with a massive undertaking to meet the 2013 deadline. Opponents to the delay point out that the U.S. is the last major country to switch over. A recent study from Edifecs returned some interesting numbers. Attendees of the 2012 ICD-10 Summit were surveyed on the possible delay and indicated an overall opposition. In fact, 64 percent say a delay will not improve readiness, 60 percent say a one-year delay would have a negative impact, and 69 percent say a two-year delay would be potentially catastrophic.  What are your opinions? Do you agree with the majority surveyed?

March PULSE: A Look at the Labor Market

At The Jacobson Group, we take a couple of different approaches to understanding the changes in the labor market within our industry. Looking backwards is relatively easy as we can simply compile the monthly BLS data that focuses on the insurance industry and see what happened – in fact we do just that and release the summarized data to our clients shortly after the BLS releases their numbers. Click here if you want to see the February data. As always, the more difficult and more valuable part of the exercise is to determine what is likely to happen in the future. Well, for the past three years, Jacobson and Ward Group have been conducting a quarterly study of the industry’s labor market to better predict future trends (you can see the latest edition summarized by Insurance Journal).

Seeds of a Hard Market

The Japanese saga playing out before our eyes is first and foremost a human tragedy that reminds all of us of the fragility of our lives and livelihoods. Here at Jacobson, we are praying for the best outcome for the survivors. Early estimates of insured damages are notoriously rough and so must be taken as intended: with wide margins of error. We do know that the final numbers will be large. Coupled with the catastrophe response costs of other recent events (Christchurch most recently), most insiders are predicting a turn in reinsurance pricing in the near future. What does this mean for the rest of the industry? While each market is independent, they are all connected to the overall industry currents. Clearly, the property market will be impacted most directly. Aside from steep losses, the recent catastrophes may result in increased demand for property coverage. More broadly, at some point, either market or central bank induced, U.S. and other tier 1 sovereign interest rates will rise. When they do, the impacts on the cost and availability of capital could be significant. We may be seeing the seeds of the first broad-based hard market in quite a while.  

Homework: Insights on Telecommuting

My two youngest children are home from school today due to a scheduled day off. Because my wife has returned to college to prepare for her next career, one in healthcare, I volunteered to work out of my home office. There are certainly advantages to doing so: the elimination of the commute and the ability to work on projects with limited interruption (well, maybe it’s just a different kind of interruption) are the first that come to mind. I am fortunate that The Jacobson Group runs large work-at-home projects for our clients, because that means we have the technology and expertise in place to make my telecommute pretty simple. If you are a regular reader of our newsletter or participate in our industry-focused webinars, then you know that we have been talking a lot about work-at-home lately. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, this topic has been our most popular in a while. We have seen a significant boost in telecommuting in the past two years. The number of telecommuting projects that we run on behalf of our clients has exploded over the past 24 months, and these arrangements now make up roughly 40% of our projects. This shift is not surprising considering the need to manage costs carefully these days. On the ‘permanent’ side of the labor market, we have also seen a pretty significant change, though that change began in earnest 20 years ago and has been more gradual. These days, virtually every management role we fill, involves the oversight of offsite staff, nearly always including some telecommuters.

Unintended Consequences of Healthcare Reform

Last year’s America’s Affordable Health Choices Act (also known as the PPACA) is slowly beginning to impact the marketplace. I have argued since I began this blog that the approach that was eventually passed into law was misguided as it did not address the root causes of the true primary issue: healthcare cost escalation. Now we are seeing unintended consequences of this misguided effort. Attacks on the insurance industry are simply driving players from market segments and will thus change the market in a very negative manner from the perspective of the consumer.