Generally, younger candidates have low interest working in insurance.
The insurance industry has an extremely low unemployment rate at just 2.2% as of August 2019, significantly lower than the national average of 3.7%. Not only do you have existing openings to consider, but you need to plan for the possibility of turnover, as your current employees may be tempted by offers from your competitors.
On top of turnover, insurance faces a unique challenge in that the workforce is rapidly ‘greying’, with roughly a quarter of insurance professionals approaching retirement, and younger candidates have a generally low interest in working in insurance.
How do you account for your insurance staffing and recruiting efforts, and what can you do to get the talent you need? There are several approaches to solve the staffing dilemma, each with their own benefits.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the average cost of hiring a new employee is over $4,000, and insurance industry jobs remain open for 49-97 days depending on seniority level. In order to fill these open full-time positions, you might choose to invest in your recruitment efforts. Hiring an internal HR manager to recruit, interview, and onboard employees will create the need to fill yet another full-time position (and pay another full-time salary), while external agencies charge a hefty per-placement fee to facilitate recruitment and hiring.
Building your in-house team can absolutely be worth the investment. A great core team is essential to keep your business running smoothly and ensure continuity of service across your biggest customers. If you choose to invest in recruiting efforts, be sure to also invest in employee growth, development, and retention tactics to reduce turnover.
You might be tempted to partner with an insurance staffing agency or other temporary employment source to take on processing and clerical tasks. But as the name implies, hiring these employees is only a short-term solution. Having a revolving door of temps can result in reduced productivity—on average, new clerical employees take roughly 8 weeks to get up to speed, and it can be difficult to integrate temporary and contract employees into your existing procedures and culture.
Only 16% of insurance employers have established policies to manage a variety of types of workers, which can lead to a lack of motivation and high turnover among temps and contractors in addition to full-time employee turnover. However, with the right management and training, temporary employees can be a great source for potential contract-to-hire full time employees to grow your team.
Insurance outsourcing can be an extremely cost-effective way to partner with trained insurance industry professionals to service your clients. Insurance outsourcing can help solve staffing shortages for everything from basic processing capabilities to omnichannel customer experience services. Taking these tasks off the plate of your in-house team not only frees them up to do more specialized work to grow your business, but also gives them time to focus on the parts of their job they find most personally rewarding, improving employee morale and incentivizing longer tenure.
When working with an insurance business process outsourcing partner, onboarding is a shorter process to ensure that your dedicated outsourcing team is aware of your brand requirements and existing processes. A good insurance BPO partner will develop a completely customizable solution based on your long-term business needs.
When you’re ready to get started with insurance outsourcing, the experts at Patra are ready to help you get started.
About Patra
Patra is a leading provider of technology-enabled outsourcing services and software solutions to the insurance industry. Patra powers insurance processes by optimizing the application of people and technology, supporting insurance organizations as they sell, deliver, and manage policies and customers through our PatraOne platform. Patra’s global team of over 6,500 process executives in geopolitically stable and democratic countries that protect data allows agencies/brokerages, MGAs, wholesalers, and carriers to capture the Patra Advantage – profitable growth and organizational value.
