On March 3, Triple-I launched its Chart of the Week, “Ladies’s Illustration Amongst Underwriters Elevated.” Citing information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the chart reveals that the variety of ladies insurance coverage Underwriters elevated by 5 % from 56.9 % to 61.9 % in 2024.
The insurance coverage sector offered about 3.0 million jobs–or 1.9 % of U.S. employment (employees 16 years and over) in 2024. Knowledge from the Bureau of Labor Statistics signifies that 1.7 million employees had been ladies. Since 2012, ladies have comprised about the identical general proportion (about 59 %) of the trade workforce every year. Nevertheless, the most recent COTW reveals that illustration continues to range throughout occupations. From 2023 to 2024, ladies’s illustration amongst Insurance coverage Clerks decreased 1.4 %, from 80.1 % to 78.7 %. Illustration amongst Insurance coverage Gross sales Brokers decreased 3.8 %, from 54.9 % to 51.1 %.
The typical illustration of girls throughout the U.S. workforce is 47 % primarily based on information from households within the Present Inhabitants Survey (CPS), an annual survey of enterprise institutions in personal trade carried out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Life insurance coverage, annuities, and residential and auto insurance coverage sectors are significantly extra gender numerous than the common trade in North America, particularly in entry-level jobs, the place ladies make up two-thirds of the 70% of entry-level employees. In distinction to the abundance of illustration on the backside, the view throughout the highest ranks seems to be notably completely different. Solely about 22 % (lower than 1 in 4) of employees within the C-Suite are ladies, and solely two ladies CEOs head up Fortune 500 insurance coverage corporations: Thasunda Brown Duckett, President and Chief Government Officer of TIAA, and Tricia Griffith, President and Chief Government Officer of the Progressive Group of Insurance coverage Firms.
Nonetheless, ladies proceed to display their abilities, willingness to develop, and skill to affect the insurance coverage trade in a constructive and forward-thinking means. In keeping with McKinsey, for each 100 males promoted to managerial positions, 104 ladies are promoted — a lot increased than the 87 ladies promoted throughout all industries. On the board stage, ladies maintain 40 % of the seats within the aforementioned trade sectors.
Nevertheless, from entry-level to managerial stage, the ladies within the trade are predominantly white, with the management pipeline remaining much more closed off to ladies of colour. Just one in 20 senior vice presidents and one in 35 direct reviews to CEOs in insurance coverage are ladies of colour. Black ladies comprise greater than 7 % of the entry-level insurance coverage workforce, however this quantity plummets alongside the company ladder and falls to nearly zero on the C-suite.
There’s proof that girls as employees within the insurance coverage trade return a good distance, as far again as 1797. Their large affect on the trade as customers doubtless pivoted in 1839 with particular person American states passing the Married Ladies’s Property Act, permitting life insurance coverage proceeds to be handed to a widow with out being topic to the calls for of the husband’s debtors. By 1942, ladies accounted for 30% of complete life insurance coverage gross sales, and simply two years later, ladies had been shopping for 83% extra life insurance coverage than they did in 1942.
Immediately, preserving danger administration options simply accessible and tailor-made to the market’s wants is arguably the largest core problem going through insurers. Analysis signifies that feminine CEOs amongst U.S. property-casualty insurance coverage corporations are related to “decrease insurer insolvency propensity, increased z-score, and decrease normal deviation of return on belongings.” Moreover, information prompt that as customers, ladies are inclined to spend comparatively extra of their revenue on insurance coverage and have completely different client behavioral preferences which will compel a rethinking of insurance coverage worth chains.
Thus, insurers could uncover that fostering an inclusive tradition that welcomes extra ladies into management generally is a sooner path to profitable outcomes. Be part of us on the upcoming JIF 2025 occasion and comply with our weblog for extra insights on the way forward for insurance coverage.