Insurers improve gender diversity but boardroom change ‘negligible’, finds ABI

Gender diversity in the UK insurance sector has improved but needs more work as it is “essential to our industry’s future success”, said Association of British Insurers (ABI) chair Amanda Blanc, following the release of the annual talent and diversity survey results.

The proportion of women on executive teams increased by 5 percentage points in 2018, according to the ABI survey.

However, it showed that the number of women at senior levels remained too low.

Women accounted for 27 percent of executive level posts compared with 22 percent in 2017, while 39 percent of people at management level are female, up from 36 percent a year earlier.

Women continued to be well represented at entry level with more women than men coming into the industry. But representation at board level was “negligible” rising 1 percent, the survey found.

Employers have put more initiatives in place to drive change, with the survey finding 88 percent of firms have an executive sponsor for diversity and inclusion, up from 74 percent in 2017.

More employers are now using diverse interview panels for recruitment up from 67 percent to 78 percent, as well as greater use of blind CVs and gender balanced shortlists. Although the proportion of black and minority ethnic people working in the sector fell from 15 percent to 13 percent.

While more than half of the respondents told the survey that a member of the executive team was responsible for LGBT+ inclusion.

As part of efforts to increase diversity 61 percent of companies surveyed said they had a mentoring programme for groups who are underrepresented in the company.

Blanc, who is also CEO EMEA for Zurich Insurance Group, said: “The vast majority of adults in this country are customers of the insurance and long-term savings industry in some way. Matching the diversity of our workforce to the diversity of the communities we serve is essential to our industry’s future success. Such a change takes time, but the last few years have seen a real shift in commitment at the highest levels of the industry, and at last there are signs the dial is starting to shift.

“Gender equality is only one aspect of diversity but I am encouraged to see growth in female representation at manager and executive levels, and more women than men continue to join the industry. This progress needs to be repeated, year after year, if the industry is to become truly diverse. And where we make progress on gender, we must scrutinise what is working and why so we can improve diversity across the board – on sexuality, on ethnicity and more.”

ABI interviewed around 103,000 insurance employees for the survey but those interviews did not cover insurance brokers, it said.