What is the single purpose that unites us working in insurance?

It really is fascinating to think of how many possible jobs, roles, and responsibilities there might be across the entire insurance industry. 

When you consider insurers, agencies, brokerages, MGAs, reinsurers, technology providers, and the many other businesses that support our industry, it’s not a stretch to say there are thousands – maybe even tens of thousands – of unique job descriptions.

Presumably, every one of these job descriptions identifies the specific functions, activities, reporting relationships, and required skills needed. It’s fair to assume they do a good job of giving clarity to the daily activities that most insurance professionals are accountable for performing. And, in some instances, they may even go so far as to connect the dots as to how a given role connects to a broader network of roles. 

It may also go without saying that most are written through the largely singular functional industry swim lane that a company occupies. That is, carrier job descriptions: 

• are written with their financial, regulatory, and reputational risk in mind
• agent/broker job descriptions largely align around the need to generate new sales and targeted retentions 
• third-party firms’ job descriptions are likely focused on sales-oriented metrics relative to how they penetrate their targeted portion of the industry.

The one thing every insurance job description lacks

All that said, I believe every single job description across all those possible swim lanes is woefully lacking one thing, one very specific point of purpose, and a direct connection to the overarching purpose that we all have. 

That’s right. Every single person in or supporting the insurance industry shares one significant responsibility…the only reason we are even here. Whether you are an actuary pricing a product, a product designer, and underwriter, an agent, an account executive, an IT professional, a claims adjuster, an attorney, a facilities professional, a third-party services provider, a trade association staffer, or even an outside investor, we all exist for one reason and one reason only.

To indemnify a policyholder.

Every role in the industry exists in some unique way to ultimately make certain that when one of our customers has a covered loss, we are here to help the person or business through what is likely one of their worst days. 

How do all of these roles have anything to do with paying claims? 

Technically, they don’t. 

But, we all have a role in making sure it’s possible for the claims professional to do their job. And that role requires us to simply spend the time to understand the economics and forces that govern our industry.

Divvying up the premium dollar

What happens to a dollar of premium once it is collected? 

Think about this through the lens of a combined ratio, one of, if not the, most important metrics to measure an insurer’s health, which could be argued is the core of the industry’s health. A combined ratio of 100 is essentially a way of understanding what happens to that dollar of premium. Here’s one way that premium dollar, hypothetically, could be allocated:

• $0.55 immediately allocated to pay claims
• $0.15-$0.20 to pay agencies and brokers
• $0.25 for all underwriting and business expenses (underwriters, actuaries, IT, legal, compliance, security, facilities, sales, marketing…)

You can see how quickly that dollar of premium is immediately devoured.

Considering the reason our industry exists and how much of our overall revenue must be allocated to fulfill that promise to our customers and communities, I challenge every person in the industry to focus on the 60 cents of every dollar we collect, which needs to be set aside to pay claims. It’s why we are here – to indemnify a customer.

I believe that every job description in or touching our industry should address it. 

It’s fundamental to knowing why we all do what we do every single day.

Rewriting job descriptions to focus on indemnifying customers

But, how does it look in a job description? Great question. Could we all have something along these lines?

• Act with the policyholder first in mind.
• All employees are required to take an insurance financial acumen course.
• Support the customer indemnification process

If we hold everyone working in insurance to a level of responsibility and accountability to, ultimately, make certain that we are capable of upholding our single promise, I believe a lot of conversations in our industry would look different and, perhaps, with more mutual respect.