Selling a career

A recruiter is waking prime graduates to the many opportunities of working in insurance

By Miranda Maxwell

In the 1967 movie The Graduate, young Benjamin Braddock was famously given short and blunt career advice: “I just want to say one word to you... Plastics.”

Like plastics, insurance has notoriously suffered an image problem among the crème de la crème of young university and college graduates, overshadowed by the lure of newer and faster-moving industries and hurt by a perception of a staid, risk-averse culture.

Specialist recruiter Fuse is disabusing graduates of this notion with its award-nominated Future Insure Graduate Program, showing Australia’s young high achievers that insurance can in fact be a rewarding, secure and varied career choice suited to a wide range of skills and qualifications.

With the help of brokers and other industry partners who commit to taking a minimum of one graduate every year from the tailored program, Fuse is supporting the long-term development of the industry through a pipeline of new talent and future leaders, addressing under-representation of graduate talent in insurance.

“These are people that are going to be the future leaders of industry and we need to attract a lot more of the graduate talent that is available,” Fuse Manager Insurance & Wealth Management Cameron Watson told Insurance News.

“I don’t think as an industry we’ve done a good enough job to create the right profile around insurance.

“We tend to come up against the sexy brands of PWC and Deloitte, banks – all of those big brands that attract the large majority of graduate talent. Insurance is generally a candidate-short market and it’s a real skill shortage,” Mr Watson says.

Fuse has already placed more than 50 graduate candidates since the program’s Melbourne launch in 2018, and is now expanding the program into Sydney and Brisbane, with the prospect of placing as many as 100 graduates each year.

The recruiter says it fills a niche that hasn’t been met by previous attempts to snare the brightest new achievers brandishing shiny new degrees. Fuse noticed those mid-tier organisations in insurance saw the attraction of graduate talent but didn’t have the time, resources or structures to develop a whole graduate program in their own right.

“The major insurers and the larger broking houses all have enough capacity and capability to have really structured programs, but the next level down is where the big gap is in the market,” Mr Watson says. “We play that little piece in in bridging that gap between the majors and the rest of the market and we think that’s a fairly big gap that exists at the moment in the insurance industry.”

Mr Watson says he has “a real passion” for insurance, having spent more than 20 years in the industry across multiple roles at Allianz and CGU, where he managed graduates first-hand.

However, like most people who find fulfilment in insurance, his arrival in the industry was a happy accident.

“I fell into insurance, and there would probably be 90% of the people that are sitting in insurance now that fell into it as a career as well,” Mr Watson says. “It’s something that I would love to see change. I would like to have graduates that are actually making a conscious choice of insurance as a career.”

The greatest challenge as an industry is the “inability to attract more”, he says. There is a lack of true natural progression within the industry via education pathways, with no specific university degree to highlight what a fantastic and versatile industry it is.

Mr Watson says the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance (ANZIIF) and its Careers in Insurance initiative, along with the admirable inhouse graduate programs such as Aon’s, have improved the profile of insurance as a potential career option, yet more needs to be done.

“There are a number of really great programs out there, but we felt they missed a pretty integral piece: that in addressing the issue of attracting more and more young talent to the market, it didn’t really go anywhere.

“There was a missing piece between that awareness being created and then providing a vehicle for graduates to actually apply for opportunities within the market.”

At EY, Global Insurance Leader Isabelle Santenac describes talent as the “secret sauce” for maximising insurance industry returns. But she warns: “Insurers generally rank low in terms of where university graduates want to work.

“To attract the right talent in this competitive environment, insurers must define and communicate a clear sense of purpose – why the industry matters, its societal value and why it’s an appealing sector in which to develop a career.”

Fuse is investing resources to understand what motivates graduates and the “fit” their degrees and particular strengths and personality traits have to best align with certain roles. The team then assesses a candidate’s culture fit with the businesses signed up to the program.

Fuse says firms can hire “potential, not experience”, and graduates offer proven return on investment, are driven and enthusiastic, socially and environmentally conscious and flexible. Mr Watson says they are keen to learn, have solid transferable business skills, bring new perspectives, are tech-savvy, work well to deadlines, are fast learners and bring fresh ideas and new skills.

The program offers two primary intakes a year, conducting screening of candidates and career days with program partners.

Fuse works on brand awareness, attracting graduates to the program, and participates post-placement, ensuring graduates are settled into the role and that the company has mentoring capacity.

Sponsors commit to employing at least one graduate each year on a starting salary of at least $50,000. Most graduates start in claims, broking or underwriting – the traditional roles in insurance – to develop their capability. Degrees in business, commerce, finance, law and engineering have dominated so far, but the program is not degree-specific.

It has enjoyed high retention, with only three graduates departing the program in the first two years, some due to relocation and one returning to teaching, and Mr Watson has a vision for a tightly bonded and active alumni community offering like-minded support among a group naturally bonded by similar demographics.

“That’s our grand plan down the track – that we are standing up in front of 500 or so graduates that have all found their way into insurance as a career.”

Fuse has found graduates are impressed when they attend assessments and hear about insurance in detail, all it encompasses and the size and scope of the industry.

“Their eyes are opened very widely,” Mr Watson says. “Once there’s a greater level of understanding about it, people quickly realise that it is a great industry to be part of.”

A recent study by GlobalData confirmed insurance does indeed have a challenging image problem globally, with news sentiment hitting its lowest ebb as COVID struck in March and April among media reports that many travel and business interruption claims were not valid.

That was “incredibly damaging to consumer trust and will have lasting damage”, Mr Watson says.

He agrees the media generally fosters a negative association with insurance and the industry cops unfair criticism despite only a small percentage of claims being declined.

Finding bright sparks: Fuse’s Cameron Watson

“We’re always hit over the head,” he says. “If there’s been a claim event that we haven’t responded to in every single way in which the community would like, we generally get a bit of a bad rap.

“There’s been a whole range of negativity associated with the insurance market over the years that we’ve just battled to overcome as an industry.”

Still, the need for insurance will not wane, a need only underscored by COVID and climate change. Yet some see the pandemic possibly helping “sell” a career in insurance as new value is placed on job security.

“It’s an industry that has longevity around it and a real level of security that I think is an attractive proposition to anyone – certainly to those leaving school and looking for a long-term career,” Mr Watson says.

Declan Gaffney was placed as a graduate insurance broker and says his favourite part of the job is relaying to a client that a claim has been settled.

“When we are able to help businesses that have suffered a loss, it feels really good,” he says.

Mat Norman graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Deakin University in 2018 and is now a Broker Support Officer at Future Insure. He says he loves the “learning aspect” of his role and that he “could potentially one day save a client’s livelihood or protect them from losing everything”.

Testimonials from sponsors say the Fuse process makes identifying candidates and recruiting seamless, and the graduates are of a high calibre, having pre-qualified from both a technical and “cultural fit” perspective.

Austbrokers Countrywide Manager of Corporate Broking Darren Toll says the program is leading the way in addressing the issue of developing future talent in the insurance industry.

“For years everyone involved in the industry knew about this issue, but Fuse Recruitment is actively addressing it,” he says.

PSC Insurance Brokers Commercial Manager Darren Fenech says PSC had long lamented a lack of awareness in major universities about careers in insurance and has gratefully employed “outstanding” candidates via Fuse.

“The benefits of being able to recruit young people directly from university into entry level roles has been obvious to PSC for some time however we really needed someone who could manage that for us,” Mr Fenech says.

“Because Fuse were able to accurately convey the opportunities and pathways for a career in the industry, expectations have been managed, met and even exceeded.”

Fuse has just become a corporate supporter of ANZIIF, a partnership which Mr Watson says offers a “real strong platform for us to grow this quite aggressively over the next few years”.

All of this suggests insurance is a rare sector that under-promises yet over-delivers.

“We all say that once you get into the industry you rarely get out of it because it is such an amazing industry,” Mr Watson says. “There’s a really good story to sell about insurance as a career path and we’ve got to continue as an industry to promote it and promote it very loudly.”