Bryant Rousseau speaks with Mike Davidson, State Farm's recently retired vice chairman and chief marketing and agency officer, and SVP Rand Harbert, who succeeded Davidson as leader of the company's nearly 18,000 agents.
The issue of attracting the next generation of agent talent into the business is a core issue for the industry, with some saying we're approaching a succession crisis as baby boomers start to retire. How is this event going to help State Farm address this issue of finding the most effective way to attract the Millennial generation into insurance?
Mike Davidson: For years, there was thinking that to be successful in the insurance business you need to get seven or eight years of experience somewhere else, breaking yourself into the business world. Then, once you get some maturity, you can become an agent. We've got reams of data back home that will show there's actually no difference whether a person starts as an agent at 21 or at 41 in terms of his or her overall long-term performance. And this event reinforces to us what kind of high-quality young adults are out there, and it helps us as the leadership of the organization to go back to the people who are actually recruiting agents and say, "Don't overlook this generation! They've got skills and competencies that far surpass people in prior generations."
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.