Insurance still suffers from skills gap

The sixth annual latest Skills Survey from the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) reveals that a lack of employee skills is having a direct impact on its member businesses.

The top three ramifications of the skills gap are impaired service quality, increased talent expenses and the inability to achieve growth.

Just 8% of respondents felt that new entrants to the profession are “very well” prepared in basic literacy and numeracy, the lowest level since the survey began. 39% feel that new entrants are not well prepared, up 13% points on last year.

Half of employers feel the education system meets the needs of insurance.

10% of the 2,300 CII general insurance respondents believe that attracting new talent should form part of the industry's focus, suggesting a greater emphasis on developing the capabilities of existing staff.

73% who participated in the survey still identified skills gaps in their organisations.

A comprehensive analysis of the findings is featured in a special supplement in this month's CII Journal, produced in conjunction with Allianz.

42% of the CII's general insurance members feel the sector should focus its efforts on improving technical skills with soft skills and business competence also rated important by a fifth or more of members.

Daniel Pedley of the CII said:

"The work done by the CII in recent years – namely the Discover Riskactivity aimed at attracting a higher calibre of young candidates to insurance – has brought together countless students and industry practitioners.

"This suggests there is a disconnection between what general insurance firms are trying to achieve by appealing to the best talent and what they are actually achieving in reality."

CII members want UK education and skills policy to focus on the basics: literacy and numeracy, soft skills and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.