“Badass” women can aim high in evolving insurance sector

Senior leadership teams in the insurance sector remain male-dominated but women can still thrive in the business, a Bayes Business School event heard recently.

The half day conference was the fourth organised by Bayes’ Faculty of Actuarial Science and Insurance – in partnership with the Women’s Inclusivity Network of the Worshipful Company of Insurers (iWIN). It explored the range of professional options the sector offers and provided advice and inspiration to women seeking to build their career in the industry.

Two high achievers talked about how they have carved out successful careers in the sector and the changes they have seen.

Maxine Goddard, a board advisor and insurance executive at Insurance DataLab, and Claire Burrell, an experienced insurance leader and business change specialist and Past Master of The Worshipful Company of Insurers, agreed that diversity initiatives, training and development, and regulatory nudges have delivered progress towards gender balance – but much is still to be done.

Ms Goddard said:

When I started, I would be the only woman in the room – indeed the only one in the building. A lot has changed and it hasn't changed just organically. It has taken a lot of effort to make those changes. Probably about 20 per cent of the leadership are women, so I'm really pleased with those changes because before it would be one woman leader out of 150.

Ms Burrell said her own experiences echoed those of Ms Goddard – particularly when it came to being heard in the board room.

Crucially, Ms Goddard said, women now have far more confidence to speak out in trading rooms, client meetings and boardrooms.

“Women are speaking out more, they're more badass. We put a lot into making sure that training and development for women isn’t just around the technical side of the job, but also the soft side. You’ve got your technical capital and you have your social capital and both matter. I’m excited to see more women coming through who don’t shrink in an important meeting.”

The Gen Z women in the audience, she said, might feel they are accustomed to speaking up compared to previous generations but they need to guard against losing that self-confidence.

When you get into an organisation you have to be determined that you will not shrink. Maintain your bad-assness when you come into the workplace and reach senior leadership roles.

However, that approach is for maintaining the confidence to contribute to high-powered meetings. People also need to ‘kill with honey’ – building relationships at all levels of the organisation, including with charm and warmth.

Both leaders stressed the importance of recognising and articulating your strengths –the parts of the job you are particularly good at and what roles might therefore best suit you.

They also advised:

• Build a strong technical track record
• Cultivate “social capital” – relationships across the organisation and the market
• Seek out mentors and be prepared to act as mentor to others
• Keep pushing past the second and third hurdles, not just the first
• Be willing to move roles, locations or disciplines when you hit a ceiling or stop learning: if it doesn’t work out there’s always the chance to move sideways or return to previous roles
• Join networks and organisations such as the Worshipful Company of Insurers, which hosts the Women’s Inclusivity Network of around 140 women working in insurance.

The panel discussion was led by Dr Simone Krummaker, Head of the Faculty of Actuarial Science and Insurance at Bayes. Welcoming guests, she said extensive research has confirmed that diversity is “not just a ‘nice to have’ for firms, it provides a competitive advantage”.

Recent analysis, however, suggests that women fill less than 7 per cent of British CEO roles in insurance firms and around 16 per cent of chief financial officer positions.

She exhorted the 100 participants to change that.

“We are meeting in one of the world’s great insurance hubs. London has shaped global insurance markets for centuries, and the UK and European sectors together employ millions of women. In the UK alone, there are now well over half a million women working in insurance.

“So the talent is there. You are here. But the leadership gap is still real. Insurance is at the heart of some of the biggest challenges of our time: climate change, cyber risk, ageing societies, geopolitical instability. To tackle those issues, we need every perspective at the table – across gender, ethnicity, culture and background. Sitting in this room are future underwriters, actuaries, claims leaders and innovators – and perhaps a future CEO of a London market firm.”