The insurance industry is aging fast. Hordes of experienced professionals are expected to retire in the next decade and there aren’t enough people keen to step in and replace them.
A workforce generation gap has slowly started to emerge in the past 50 years and the insurance industry, with its drooping sex appeal, has been struggling to attract a fresh millennial workforce.
Celebrate excellence in insurance. Nominate a worthy colleague for the Insurance Business Awards!
As a result, one company has taken matters into its own hands. Patra Corporation is using a unique three-pronged approach to address the staffing problem in the insurance industry and “replenish the coffers of the talent.”
“We started 12-years-ago with a concept to help insurance brokers by producing certificates of insurance in a faster, better and cheaper way. Not long after that, we realized there was a much bigger objective and goal that we were able to achieve within the insurance industry, so we started to offer more services,” said John Simpson, CEO, Patra Corporation.
“Using technology and global connectivity, we are able to take the more routine, mundane tasks off the desks of insurance professionals, who are often overwhelmed by the volume of work piling up due to the general staffing crisis and number of people leaving the industry. We can take those routine tasks and move them to a high-efficiency, overseas real-time environment, using technology, staffing and process flow to get things done. This allows insurance professionals to really focus on the top of their job description.”
Technology and connectivity can relieve pressures on insurance professionals. But technology can’t quite keep up with the rate of professionals leaving the industry, so it needs to be combined with creative staffing to provide a solution for the future, according to Simpson.
One effective staffing solution is remote working. Modern technology means that workers don’t always need to be in the same office performing routine tasks. If a member of staff can get onto the company system remotely, they can still execute the task at hand and connect with the customer. Giving people flexibility and respecting their schedules and lifestyles is “revolutionary” but beneficial, said Simpson.
“The second prong was when we started deploying remote US licenses professionals around the US to start performing higher value tasks and take on brokers’ small accounts with guaranteed profitability,” Simpson told Insurance Business. “We were able to combine remote employees with overseas staffing in order to make the process more efficient and provide regional and time zone capabilities for our customers.
“Finally, the third prong was to understand that the insurance industry is changing and that a generation gap has occurred. We are starting a national training program that will hopefully bring a whole new set of interested people into the insurance industry so that we can replenish the coffers of talent. We’re training people in brick-and-mortar environments but then releasing them to work remotely so they can be with their families.”
Patra’s three-pronged approach has been a huge success. Its remote models, overseas staffing and flexibility have resulted in great results for the company, alongside sustained business growth.
“We stepped into something that was very interesting and hopefully we are going to be part of the fabric of the insurance industry morphing over the next couple of decades,” Simpson added. “We are providing an infrastructure that can make the insurance industry sustainable and long-term.”
Related stories:
Insurance staffing crisis: How to turn it around
Aon sells outsourcing platform
