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Praying for Rain

Industry growth needs balance of youth and experience

By Lisa H. Harrington CPCU, CAE | Updated on October 31, 2011

For most of the country, this historically hot, dry summer has created problems ranging from fires to water shortages to ruined crops. The ground cracks and the wind blows, spreading fire and catastrophe. We have had the second hottest summer on record. In the twisted logic of Mother Nature, we also experienced hurricanes and floods, which cause equal devastation elsewhere across the nation. Flooding creates washed out roads and clogged roadways. It’s been a season of extremes, where most of us wish we had just a little of the weather our compatriots are experiencing—but please don’t send all of it!

This dichotomy has me comparing our extremes in the American agency system and in the insurance industry as a whole. How vast the gulf is becoming between agency and company leadership, which ranges from age 51 to 57, and the new cadre of talent we are bringing aboard. It also is a national problem, written about in the trade press now for a decade or more. The facts are in, discussed at every level of every insurance organization. The middle ground is very thin. Our stakeholders are aging, and the enormous new crop of high school graduates from 2009 and 2010 doesn’t show much interest in our business.

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