Much has been written in recent months and years about carriers coping with an older workforce retiring. Insurers must devise a plan to both market to and attract this latest generation of workers, all while devising a strategy to retain the knowledge and experience of its exiting employees.
In an effort to gauge how insurers are dealing with the growing shortage of qualified, experienced underwriters,
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Addressing these concerns, FirstBest asked the 50 underwriters who attended CTO Julian Pelenur’s 2010 NAMIC presentation,“Bridging the Gap with Collaborative Technology,” to complete a brief, open-ended survey about the talent crisis, staff development and training. The responses show concentrations of challenges, and that most use manual, time-consuming methods for training and knowledge sharing. (Underwriters could cite up to three topical responses per question.)
FirstBest asked attendees about their greatest concern for hiring and training new underwriters in the near term. The most common response, offered by 35% of those surveyed, was “ongoing training, underwriting skills and knowledge sharing.” About 30% cited “finding and attracting qualified applicants” as a concern. “Generational expectations” was a concern for 15% of the underwriters surveyed, while an equal amount felt “employee retention” was among their top challenges.
When FirstBest asked about methods for training and sharing best practices among team members, “meetings” (primarily weekly) were cited by 38% of the respondents and another 38% referenced “ad hoc collaboration and information sharing.” A close third was “ongoing training and personal mentoring,” while 15% reported still using paper-based internal manuals. Only 20% reported using technology, such as instant messaging, Intranets, blogs, or e-mail to collaborate with, and educate underwriters on their teams.
“Our survey findings reveal that Intranets, shared drives and other pre-Web 2.0 technologies are serving as workarounds, and only some carriers are using true Web 2.0, collaborative technologies,” said Pelenur. “Today, P&C carriers need automation, knowledge management and real-time collaboration tools such as screen sharing, alerts, chat and workflow management. A combination of these approaches can transform the underwriting process, and help solve these challenges in a unified, holistic manner. Companies can capture their experienced workers’ valuable knowledge, as well as make the job more exciting and attractive to the younger generation, with a better simplified, automated and modernized process that remains relevant as attitudes and expectations continue to evolve.”