Mandy Cooper, director at CPR Insurance Services, has more than 30 years’ experience across the insurance industry in a range of different roles. From broker and underwriter to now director, Cooper knows the industry inside out. Recently, in an interview with Insurance Business, she explained that the sector is struggling to attract fresh, well-trained staff equipped with the tools necessary to deal with what the industry throws at you.
“There is a lack of younger staff coming through the system – and a lack of traineeships out there,” Cooper said.
This concern reflects a trend not restricted to the insurance industry – namely, a lack of qualified ‘fresh faces’ entering at either an entry level position or beyond. With the steady reduction of traineeships and cadetships across the sector, and both pre- and post-university graduates continuing to be drawn to the emerging ‘start-up’ and digital space, there makes for a lack of staff injection in the insurance sphere.
Cooper explained that while CPR recently found a well-trained, young broker who is a strong asset to the team, most brokerages struggle in the thinning field of new entrants.
“We’re blessed now having a great broker in the office with us – but we struggled to find one for a long time,” Cooper said. “It’s been an ongoing issue that doesn’t seem to change – it’s very common.”
The increased appeal of university, and the slow decline of the number of cadetships makes for a smaller pool of personnel than previously.
“Traineeships and cadetships – where are they and what’s happened to them?” Cooper said to Insurance Business.
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Cooper remembers in a previous job, “years and years ago,” the brokerage would get in boys from the local cricket academy for a month in the off-season to introduce them to broking and to get them to do some of the smaller jobs in the office – while getting soft training in the role.
“They’d come over in the summer and winter holidays as part of a sponsorship,” she said. “They’d get paid for four weeks’ work and do the basic jobs – the jobs in the business that need to get done but that no-one has time to do.”
The answer as to specifically what explains this dwindling supply of young, new faces in the industry is open for debate, but to an extent the optics of insurance may need more promoting.
“Is it maybe a generational thing?” asked Cooper. “No-one you talk to says that they wanted to work in insurance when they were in Year 11.”
Insurance may not be ‘sexy’ or have the same appeal to younger generations as Silicon Valley or the like, but a greater push to introduce it to younger individuals, coupled with the increased usage of cadetships, may ensure a stronger supply of new blood into the industry.
