Editor’s Note: Promoting the Industry to Students

At several recent conferences speakers emphasized low employment rates are having a detrimental effect on their efforts to find qualified employees to work in the insurance industry.

Efforts to find new employees are a hardship in every field and speakers cited statistics indicating that over the next 10 to 20 years, positions will be even harder to fill. This condition is attributed to baby boomers’ decision, back in the 1960s and 1970s, to delay having children as soon as they were married, resulting in today’s employee vacuum.

There is a lack of employees to work in insurance-related fields, agents offices, insurance brokers and insurance wholesalers.

A key way to shore up the availability of potential employees, everyone agreed, is to promote insurance industry jobs in high schools, colleges and at local job fairs.

The answer, according to many professionals and insurance associations is to educate students about the benefits of employment within the insurance industry as early as high school-and that it is important to talk to college students about the benefits and rewards offered by the insurance profession.

Money, job specialists point out, is no longer a key job attraction. Their studies show students want to know what their future as an insurance agent or broker holds, irrespective of the income. They are looking for an interesting profession and a career in which they can “make a difference” in someone else’s lives. The insurance industry can provide this motivation, but one wonders if the recent detrimental publicity about the industry might have on our job market.

During a recent visit in Atlanta at the offices of Pacific Wholesale Insurance Brokers, Mike Murphy said that he hires college graduates right out of school. He said their success is assured because due to insurance studies, they understand the job requirements and benefits. He emphasized the importance of having more college curriculums developed that are dedicated to the insurance profession.

The Big “I” in Florida, including the state association in Tallahassee and the Dade County Chapter in Miami, recently escalated efforts to promote their Young Agents Councils, as did the West Virginia Big “I.” Young Agents provide an ideal way to communicate with graduating college and even high school students on a one-to-one basis.

Agencies also offer high school student internships, during which a prospective student has a chance to work in an agency while still in high school. If they find the field interesting, the agency sometimes offers help with their college tuition as an incentive to join the industry.

There are many ways to interest youth in this industry, but it’s essential to make an on-going effort to do so. Our industry competes with many other professions, and to maintain qualified employees, the insustry must promote the benefits it has for students at all levels.