Last week, Corey Rule (pictured above), offered insights into why he is an insurance broker. The young account manager with Simplex Insurance Solutions is a relatively new industry recruit with only three years of industry experience.
The broker from Ballarat is also in a good position to offer some ideas about what the industry can do to attract more young people – like him – into the profession.
“If I was looking at the industry from the outside, I’d like to see more of the veil dropped, focusing on the roles that you don’t hear about,” said Rule to Insurance Business. “You can do loss adjusting, broking, underwriting, actuarial science, law, accounting, business development, claims and far more.”
He agreed when IB suggested the insurance industry still has an image problem.
“The industry is still shown as quite a dated industry,” said Rule. “Very few [young people] target insurance as a career and even fewer study prior to their involvement in the industry - myself included.”
He said one of the profession’s strengths is the sheer variety of career paths. Another strength, he said, is that similar skills can be applied across very different industry sectors, allowing you to change up your career relatively easily.
“You work with so many different people from different walks of life and the one thing that unites you all is insurance,” said Rule. “I have obtained lifelong relationships with people due to our shared love of the insurance industry.”
Despite his short time in the industry, he said the personal and professional growth he has experienced “has changed me in many positive ways.”
So how does Rule think the industry should deal with this shortage of staff and talent?
“I believe a cross-industry collaboration with people from all corners of the industry visiting schools and explaining pathways into the industry would benefit the industry greatly,” he said. “This would provide material on the ways to enter the industry - even as a part-time employment opportunity – and would be an amazing way to start.”
He also said the industry could take advantage of remote working opportunities.
“With all of the technology behind us as insurance professionals, we should be using this to showcase the ability to perform our job anywhere and with as much passion and interest as we can,” said Rule.
The broker also suggested that, given the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion for young job seekers, collaboration across the industry between insurers, brokers, loss adjusters and lawyers should be leveraged.
“This would show those outside of the industry how amazingly diverse and inclusive it can be by focusing on the relationships that we develop in our day-to-day work with people from all corners of the globe,” said Rule.
Despite Rule’s apparent suitability for his broking role, like many others, he fell into an insurance career.
“I stumbled across an administration assistant job at an insurance brokerage,” he said. “Honestly at that point in my life, I wasn’t sure what I was in for, or if I’d stay in the industry for long, however three years in, I’m going strong and loving every second!”
When friends and family asked him what his new job involved, Rule admitted that he struggled to provide an adequate explanation.
“A lot of the reactions I received were questions about what I’d be doing, and honestly, I didn’t know either,” he said. “Once I spent my first few months in a broking role, I found that my explanation still didn’t get any easier.
“I don’t think there’s enough knowledge in the general public of what brokers are great for,” he said.
Across the insurance industry, some leaders are very conscious of the talent crunch.
In March, Steadfast CEO Robert Kelly spoke to IB from the Steadfast Convention in Perth. Kelly said “the questions that were the most salient” during his discussions there concerned how to nurture new talent.
“How can we get more talent into the insurance sector and how can we have a pathway for people to see this as a real profession and want to get into it?” Kelly said.
Are you an industry stakeholder? How would you attract more young people into the insurance industry? Please tell us below
