Improving Staffing Forecasts Highlight IT Issues

Insurers are anticipating moderate but sustainable growth, as indicated by their staffing plans, according to a recent Jacobson Group and Ward Group report. The number of insurers planning to staffing increases has increased by 10 percent over the course of the last year as the number of insurers also anticipating revenue growth has increased slightly.

By function, technology, underwriting and sales/marketing, in that order, cited the highest demand for increased staffing; however, Gregory Jacobson, CEO of The Jacobson Group, also deemed technology one of the most difficult segments of an insurance company to staff.

"Recruiting mid- and upper-level IT people is almost as difficult as it was five years ago," he says. "It's really dramatic just in the past 18 months. The difficulty of recruiting IT people has increased 16 percent."

About 15 percent of respondents indicated decreasing staff. When it comes to decreasing staff, with one exception, the percentage of insurers citing automation as the reason has declined with each iteration of this biannual survey from Jacobson Group and Ward Group.

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