Takeaways from the 'Why I Chose Insurance' P&C careers chat
The chat touched on a wide range of talent-focused topics, including the importance of casting a wide net when searching for employees.
A U.S. aircraft carrier sailed somewhere off the coast of Yemen when it suffered an equipment failure. Manuel “Manny” Padilla was hustled from his bunk at 2 a.m., following an 18-hour day, to ply his engineering skills on the broken piece of Navy equipment.
“Does it get any better than this?” Padilla joked to the chief on duty.
“No,” was the reply.
Finishing the job, Padilla beelined it to the ship’s library and grabbed a copy of Barron’s college guide.
“I went through, A, B, C and stopped at this thing called the College of Insurance. It struck me as being interesting and they offered a scholarship if you got in,” he said. “I followed that up with a look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics job listings, and they had a thing called an actuary and actuarial science that paid a lot of money. I said ‘ding,’ this is where I want to go. Thankfully they accepted me and the rest is history.”
He left the U.S. Navy in 1988 and enrolled in the College of Insurance, graduating cum laude in 1992. Shortly after he became employed with MacAndrews & Forbes and its affiliated companies, where he currently serves as vice president of risk management and insurance. Padilla is also a current RIMS board member.
The path to an insurance career was not as clear cut for Caitlin Rascelles, senior vice president, western zone executive, at PURE Insurance; and Bruce Baumgarten, vice president of talent, CSAA Insurance Group. Baumgarten and Rascelles recently joined Padilla on the panel of PropertyCasualty360.com’s “Why I Chose Insurance” LinkedIn Live chat.
“Similar to Bruce saying he got involved a little bit by accident, my (path) was the same way,” Rascelles said. “I majored in business in college and was searching for a job when I graduated. I was really lucky to find an opportunity to go through a commercial underwriting training program that was about 16 weeks.”
Fast-forward 20 years, Rascelles resume stretches from underwriting and sales and marketing roles to leading regions.
The P&C industry’s most pressing talent needs
While the industry’s data-analytic abilities are strong, understanding what data to use and how to use it will become ever more critical moving forward, according to Baumgarten.
“It is really about how do we get better with data, we are already good, but how do we continue to grow that talent? Both with specific roles, with like data scientists and actuaries, but also everyone in the company,” he said.
The question, according to Baumgarten, is how can companies improve employees’ data literacy, including what insight the data reveal and how to act on those insights.
At PURE Insurance, there is a youth movement underway as the company leverages on-campus recruiting and training programs to bring young talent into the organization.
“We are really, really focused on making sure that as we think about the needs into the future, as our industry retires, making sure that we are finding young, talented people and getting them into our industry,” Rascelles said.
While data-savvy people and young talent are in demand, Padilla sees the industry’s talent needs as much wider.
“In this discussion, we are talking about different areas and different types of persons that should be looking at this in general,” Padilla said. “However, I think there is a big misunderstanding in what’s available. From my side of the fence, I see everyone from fire protection engineers to consultants that specialize in health care to occupational therapists to expert claims adjusters, accountants, finance folks. I think the one message I would like to get out there: There is no limitation to the types of job roles that are available in the industry.”
Giving its staff a more robust view of the positions in the industry, CSAA runs a program that gives employees a chance to try out other roles within the company.
“We do internal ‘gigs’ so someone can try a new job and it is a chance for them to try a role and at the same time the team gets to test the person out,” Baumgarten explained. “They can leave their normal day job and try something new out.”
The Why I Chose Insurance chat, which also dived into why veterans make excellent insurance professionals and where to find untapped pools of talent, can be viewed on the PC360 LinkedIn page.
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