To foster an environment for the industry’s future leaders to thrive, it takes effort, backed by accountability and active participation from everyone – not just women.
2. Sponsor and mentor women to support career progression and improve retention
Mentors provide advice and counseling throughout one’s career, while sponsors are on-the-job allies who state the case for one’s promotion or participation on a high-profile project. Women in the insurance field need both mentors and sponsors — and both roles need to be embraced by men and women.
Employees may be able to find mentors and sponsors through their own networking efforts, and organizations should also foster connections through team-building workshops and other methods that emphasize the importance of sponsoring across differences. It is vital to hold executives accountable for their strong commitment to D&I by measuring results, such as the retention levels and career achievements for women and other underrepresented groups within their spheres of influence. Only through metrics-based accountability will D&I achieve a sustainable impact.
We all have to ask ourselves: Who am I mentoring? Who am I sponsoring? Who am I pulling up?
3. Clear away barriers preventing the ascent of women executives
While progress has been made, women are still severely underrepresented in insurance leadership roles. Although women represent more than half of the insurance workforce, they hold fewer than one-fifth of board seats and only about one-tenth of insider officer positions and top officer positions such as CEO, COO and CFO. Based on this evidence, we can see that the pipeline for women executive talent is being artificially blocked.
In response, insurance companies need to work for greater diversity in succession planning and to prepare women for these kinds of roles. To ensure that women can rise on their merits and in accordance with the requirements of the job, succession planning has three key areas for improvement:
- Preference: Counteract the bias for search teams to promote people who look just like them.
- Tradition: Break the pattern of hiring leaders with the same background and profile as previous leaders.
- Requirements: Promote and appoint leaders based on the specific skill sets of what the leadership role requires for the success of the company.
D&I is critical for driving innovation and a competitive advantage for insurers in today’s transformative age. By welcoming a wider range of skills and viewpoints, D&I represents an essential component of the evolving business model in insurance.
As part of their broader D&I initiatives, insurance companies must take steps to improve gender parity. Starting from the top, business leaders throughout the insurance organization should be held accountable for recruiting and hiring women, sponsoring and mentoring women, retaining and promoting women and clearing away obstacles to leadership roles.
Summary
As the insurance industry continues to evolve in response to disruption, it’s imperative that insurers embrace innovation to achieve growth and market leadership. Already, AM Best has announced plans to score and assess carriers based on their ability to innovate. D&I is critical for driving innovation, and insurance companies must take necessary actions to build the next generation of women leaders.
