There's a world of difference between dreams and vision.
Dreams are the things we'd love to see come to fruition; vision, on the other hand, implies a plan for what the world would look like, should those dreams come to pass. Vision provides a roadmap to what might be possible.
Many Property & Casualty insurance executives say they would love to see more young talent attracted to the P&C industry, to counter the serious drain of institutional knowledge that will affect the industry during the next seven to 10 years as many of its established players hang up their spurs.
Alan Kaufman (chairman, president and CEO of Kaufman Financial Group), however, has a vision for how the industry might address this issue by attacking it at the roots.
"We have [industry] associations, but we're not attracting talent," he says. "The industry hasn't reinvested in itself."
One major issue in attracting young talent: With little exception, most major universities do not offer insurance programs as a primary area of study. "It isn't looked at as the career of choice for most schools," Kaufman notes.
"You have to think of a way to attract the best and brightest to the industry," he adds. "The root of the problem is that [students] have little clue about insurance. How do we change that?"
The answer, he believes, is to work with universities to develop more insurance-focused programs. To that end, Kaufman in May 2015 pledged more than $1 million to endow a faculty professorship in insurance and risk management within the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University, his alma mater. This gift will establish the Alan J. and Sue E. Kaufman Endowed Professorship in Insurance and Risk Management.
"I decided to put my money where my mouth was," he says, flatly. "I'm doing this for the industry; maybe now, other companies will do the same."
Indeed, if more top insurance executives could leverage their relationships—or work to create some—with local universities to establish more insurance areas of study, that would be a major step in fostering insurance careers in young, sharp minds.
The challenge is two-fold: First, insurers must sell the university on the idea of offering an insurance program, and then they would need to raise the money to fund it. However, if more insurers adopted a similar focus on approaching schools to cultivate interest in such programs, pipelines of talent could be created that would pay dividends down the road.
Right now, Kaufman says his more immediate goal is to raise enough money to fund an insurance program at MSU, with more professors and even a graduate program. "We need to recruit the best because the industry requires it," he says. Insurers doing outreach by visiting universities is just a drop in the bucket compared with the resources that major insurers and brokerages could bring to bear if they made a true commitment to solving the talent puzzle.
Meanwhile, the talent pool in the P&C industry grows ever shallower, he points out, as time wears on and more executives exit the business.
"There's still just not enough talent to go around," Kaufman says. These days, he adds, "everyone's just stealing [employees] from each other now, and it's getting worse. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a flow of talent, where we didn't have to go to our competition for it?"
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Shawn Moynihan
Shawn Moynihan is Editor-in-Chief of National Underwriter Property & Casualty. A St. John’s University alum, Moynihan has earned 11 Jesse H. Neal Awards, the Pulitzers of the business press; seven Azbee Awards, from the American Society of Business Press Editors; two Folio Awards; and a SABEW award, from the Society of American Business Editors & Writers. Prior to joining ALM, he served as Managing Editor/Online Editor of journalism institution Editor & Publisher, the trade bible of the newspaper industry. Moynihan also has held editorial positions with AOL, Metro New York, and Newhouse Newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected].
