Creating a stronger playbook
for attracting and winning talent
By Jim Blue
The U.S. insurance industry supports roughly 3 million jobs, according to data from the Insurance Information Institute. Roles in underwriting, claims, service, analytics, and beyond all come together to form the backbone of an industry that helps people and businesses recover from setbacks and keep moving forward after something goes wrong.
But right now, a growing gap in industry talent is emerging. Fewer qualified candidates are applying for open roles, onboarding timelines are getting longer, and mid-level professionals are stretched thin trying to cover gaps in their teams. And through all of this, clients expect faster answers and continued stellar service.
If we want to keep delivering top-tier service for clients, we need to rewrite the current hiring and retention playbook. The good news is that this is a solvable problem. The path forward is well within our reach, but it requires us to do things differently.
Why this challenge deserves our full attention
The International Insurance Society’s 2025 Global Priorities Report highlights ongoing concern about competition for talent and an aging workforce. This is a persistent and industry-wide issue that touches every firm and every function.
The reality is that a great wave of seasoned professionals is preparing to retire. When they leave, we will lose years of hard-earned knowledge in underwriting, claims, client relationships, and leadership. That kind of experience is not replaced overnight. It takes time and thoughtful investment to foster.
At the same time, the work itself is getting harder. Risk is changing quickly, and new threats emerge faster than ever before; and through no fault of their own, many incoming young professionals simply have not had the chance to build the tools they need to meet these challenges. As an industry, we need to help close this gap.
The Deloitte 2025 Global Human Capital Trends report reinforces this point. It found that 66% of managers and executives say recent hires are not fully prepared for their roles, with experience being the most common gap. This statistic tells us we cannot simply hire our way out of the problem. Instead, we must build stronger systems that champion training and development.
Investing in training programs, mentorship, and career growth has a two-fold impact. It empowers employees to do their best work while also ensuring that our businesses are ready to meet the complex challenges of tomorrow. If we do nothing, the impact will show up in our service as teams will stay stretched too thin, slowing response rates down and increasing the likelihood of errors. Even our technology investments will fall short of their full value if we do not have trained people ready to use them.
By not investing now, we will also lose ground to other industries that are doing a better job of showing younger professionals a clear future. Insurance has a powerful story to tell, but if the industry looks transactional instead of purpose-driven, we will push away the very people we need most.
A practical playbook for winning talent
As we consider how to rewrite the talent playbook, we should start by listening. Early-career professionals are very clear about what they want from their career.
The Deloitte 2025 Gen Z and Millennial Survey underlines that the next generation of the workforce cares deeply about development, purpose, and well-being. While earning a strong salary matters, it is not the only factor driving decisions. Learning and development also rank among their top priorities, and employers who do not invest in giving employees chances to grow will miss out on talent.
Insurance can meet these expectations in a real and meaningful way. Our industry offers a wide range of career paths, from technical specialties to advisory roles and leadership positions, but we have to make those paths easier to see and access.
Here is what a stronger playbook looks like in practice:
Start with better recruiting. We need to write job descriptions that tell candidates what they will learn and who will support them along the way. Too often, we lead with a long list of requirements instead of painting a clear picture of the opportunity. A prospective hire should be able to read a posting and think, “I can build something here.”
We sometimes talk about talent as
if it is separate from business strategy,
but the truth is that talent is business strategy.
Shorten the path to productivity. New hires need stronger and better structured programs that help people learn their roles quickly and with confidence. The Institutes Knowledge Group’s 2025 Skills Report confirms that skilled development demand is real and that the industry is already tracking capability gaps and training priorities. We should also give early-career professionals exposure to different parts of the business to show them the full picture of what the industry offers, build more engagement, and encourage long-term commitment.
Get serious about retention. People stay in an industry when they feel supported, coached, and that they can grow. That means investing in manager development so that leaders know how to guide their teams and create transparent promotion criteria, which helps people understand what it takes to move forward. It also means building a workplace culture that helps people feel connected, especially in hybrid work settings where that connection takes extra effort.
Measure what matters. Track time to proficiency, which is how long it takes new hires to become effective in their role. Monitor retention at 12 and 24 months, look at internal mobility to see whether people are growing within your organization, and assess coaching quality and training results. These metrics will tell you whether your investment in people is paying off.
Building for the long term
We sometimes talk about talent as if it is separate from business strategy, but the truth is that talent is business strategy. Every client outcome depends on the people behind it, and every promise we make to the market is only as strong as the team that delivers on it.
The firms that will lead this industry forward will not simply hire more early-career professionals, but rather they will build systems that help those professionals learn faster, contribute sooner, and see a long-term future in the business.
Commitment like this starts with practical changes like writing better job postings that speak to growth and purpose, shortening ramp-up time so that new hires feel productive and valued early on, and strengthening manager coaching so that development happens every day and not just during annual reviews. Making career paths visible and inviting will help people to naturally map their own futures within your organization.
The insurance industry has a purpose that resonates. We help people protect what matters most to them, and we help businesses stay resilient in the face of risk. That mission is meaningful, and it should appeal to anyone looking for a career with real impact.
However, purpose alone is not enough. We have to back it up with action and show young insurance professionals that we are willing to invest in them from day one. In a talent-constrained market, the real advantage will be the ability to develop employees into strong and high-performing professionals who will want to stay and grow with you.
The author
Jim Blue is the Chief Executive Officer of Alera Group. Jim joined Alera Group in 2018 and served as President until becoming CEO in 2025. Prior to joining Alera Group, Jim was the CEO of Marsh & McLennan Agency, New England, where he led exponential growth efforts and developed global resources. Jim is a graduate of Boston College (Finance and Marketing focus) and has his Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) designation. He serves on a number of boards and is very active in fundraising for numerous community nonprofits.
