Reshaping our market demographic

The challenge of attracting and retaining young talent, and ensuring that it reflects the communities we serve, has been a topic for discussion in boardrooms and at industry conferences for several years now.

And if it was a smouldering flame before, it is a real bonfire now. The latest London market data set reveals that the proportion of over 50s in the London insurance market has risen from 17 percent to 26 percent since 2014, while the number of under 30s has reduced from 23 percent to 21 percent.

The problem that all our businesses share is that our industry is seen as “dull” by the young. Specialty insurance is viewed in the same category as motor, phone or holiday insurance – through a lens of call-centre roles and mass-marketed products. So, to attract the under 30s we need to put our market on their radar and do it by speaking their language through the channels they engage with – Instagram, TikTok etc.

I am delighted to say that the London Market Group (LMG) is taking active steps to help solve the problem, with some campaigns we are launching this week.

”To attract the under 30s we need to put our market on their radar and do it by speaking their language through the channels they engage with”

A new website for recruitment

The website londoninsurancelife-lmg.com, brings together currently available insurance roles and will be promoted through a series of made-for-social-media films over the next six months. All our partners in the market are encouraged to promote work experience, internships, graduate programmes and entry-level roles through the London Insurance Life website from this week onwards, so please HR teams – do get involved. The contact details are at the end of this article.

Going out onto university campuses

The second part of the challenge is to get out and meet students. The LMG will launch an outreach programme into 15-20 universities with risk, insurance and finance courses during the 2022-23 academic year. This will include building relationships with course tutors, careers offices, university societies and dedicated brand ambassadors.

Engaging with sixth formers

We must not forget to talk to the youngest group of likely employees. Historically many successful insurance practitioners did not go to university, and we need to keep this channel open. The LMG has partnered with Visionpath to target sixth formers in 50 schools around the M25. The programme will create materials that schools can use to talk about risk and insurance in their curriculum, will include outreach into schools and hopefully culminate in an academy with work experience opportunities in the London market to be held in summer 2023.

What does success look like?

Our objective is simple. Over the next three to five years, we want to see a greater awareness of this industry amongst young people. This in turn should increase the flow of applications for early years roles – building a bigger pipeline of talent into the market. This pipeline should also deliver a more diverse set of candidates for entry level roles and apprenticeships that helps the market reflect the wider working population.

If we can grow the percentage of our working population that is under 30, the future of insurance will be in safe hands. Which for those of us in the over-40s generation, is very good news indeed.

The LMG wants to actively engage with the HR community across the market to get support for the above initiatives. We are holding a breakfast briefing on 12 October to talk more about our plans. If your head of HR has not been invited, please contact caroline.wagstaff@lmg.london so we can include them.