INSURTECH FOCUS: WOMEN IN INSURANCE
Aniqah Majid asks why, even now, there are so few women in positions of influence in the insurance industry Though it fairs better than most industries in the race for gender equality, insurance has a long way to go before it reaches any sort of finishing line. Women make up a sizeable chunk of the industry, yet its reputation for inclusiveness is less convincing the further you look up the organisation. Be it due to pay disparity, unsuitable work environments, or cultures that fail to incentivise female talent, women are thin on the ground when it comes to positions of influence in both incumbents and insurtechs. According to data from Statista, full- and part-time working women averaged around 45 per cent of the overall UK insurance workforce in 2021, the sample coming from the HMRC Pay As You Earn records. In the US, women dominate the industry. A 2018 report from Million Women Mentors, Women In Insurance: Leading To Action, showed they accounted for around 60 per cent of the workforce every year since 2007. This number consists of insurance claims and policy clerks (86 per cent), underwriters (62.5 per cent) and claims adjusters, appraisers and ffnews.com
its progressive attributes when it comes investigators (62.2 per cent). Compared to diversity, insurtech has the same issues to women’s representation in the general as the mainstream insurance market,” US labour market (46.8 per cent), the observes Joanne Butler, head of product figures look healthy. But have to search marketing and pre-sales at Charles Taylor, hard to find women in leadership roles. a UK insurtech providing claims solutions Globally, women made up 23 per cent of and technology to the global insurance C-suite executives, 10 per cent of CEOs and market. “A cursory look at many of the just eight per cent of board members in the leading insurtech players indicates many re/insurance industry in 2021, according of the senior positions are held by men.” to SwissRe study Gender Diversity In The Even now, the succession of a woman Re/insurance Industry: For A Sustainable CEO or board member is heralded as an Future. Data released a year earlier by industry first, instead of standard practice. the London Market Group (LMG), which This August, the century-old protection looked into the balance of men and women and indemnity (P&I) insurer, American in London’s specialist insurance and P&I Club, will welcome its first female CEO. reinsurance sector, showed that 29 per cent Dorothea Ioannou, who moves up from of re/insurers had no women in what the her previous position of country’s Financial Conduct deputy COO. While a great Authority calls ‘controlled personal achievement functions’, the most senior for Ioannou, even she jobs in the industry. At acknowledges that her the time, LMG’s chairman, progress to the top is Matthew Moore, called a phenomenon. the findings ‘disappointing’ On her appointment, and pointed to a waste of Ioannou said: “I am thrilled female talent, saying it was and excited with this ‘inadequate to the needs new appointment, which, of our industry going as a woman, carries with forward’. He also said the it not only responsibility London Market Group and significance for our was ‘energetically and organisation but also, transparently seeking to as a first in the P&I sector, remedy the gender gaps’. Joanne Butler, for the marine insurance “There has been a lot of Charles Taylor industry in general.” talk about the fact that, for all
There has been a lot of talk about the fact that, for all its progressive attributes when it comes to diversity, insurtech has the same issues as the mainstream insurance market
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