Industry must focus on attracting Millennials: Duperreault

The insurance industry must focus on attracting more Millennials into the industry and adopting their mind-set of sharing openly and working as a team.

This is the opinion of Brian Duperreault, chief executive officer of Hamilton Insurance, speaking at the Marsh & McLennan Young Professionals’ Global Forum 2015 in London on June 10.

Duperreault explained that according to research by 2020, there will be 400,000 open positions in the insurance industry as more and more management executives become eligible to retire.

He said: “Our industry needs an injection of skilled young people who are excited by the opportunities presented by our industry. The question is how many Echo Boomers are likely to be attracted to insurance? And if they are interested, can my generation of digital immigrants create workplaces that enable the innovation and creativity needed to advance our industry?”

Duperreault said that although the industry has made advances in the last few decades, there are aspects of how the industry does business that just doesn’t make sense in today’s world.

“I believe we are at one of those rare inflection points where collectively we have an opportunity to shift the paradigm. But to do so we need to address some issues. Generally we’re a pretty conservative lot. Almost half of insurance professionals in the US are over the age of 45,” he said.

“What we do and how we do it should be catnip to a Millennial looking for a purpose driven career."

Duperreault added that the industry does not just require the digital skill set Millennials can offer, but their mind-set which shares openly, communicates easily and prefers to work in teams.

“If we’re going to stay competitive and relevant, we’re going to need a workforce that, as Don Tapscott says, has been bathed in bits, with the skill set and the mind-set to look at risk management from a fresh perspective and find solutions that suit the needs of a digital world,” he explained.

Addressing delegates, Duperreault said: “Work with your senior managers to build the open and collaborative workplaces we need to innovate. Create cultures that welcome diversity and reach out to other industries to forge partnerships that lead to creative risk solutions.

“You have a wonderful, once in a lifetime opportunity to shape the future – I urge you to seize it.”