Blog: Women in Finance – the insurer view

About three years ago, a colleague approached me as she said I was “just the right candidate” to set up Zurich UK’s women’s network. I didn’t hesitate for a second. Gender equality is a subject I am passionate about.

My gender has never held back my career but that’s not to say it hasn’t been a factor. The starkest example I recall was as I prepared to deliver an industry keynote speech and a delegate leaned over asking if I was there to take minutes.

While his intention was entirely innocuous, it was an interesting assumption to make and underscores that senior women need to be less of a rarity in the industry.

That said, in the three years since Zurich UK WIN was established, there has been a huge paradigm shift in the need for action within the insurance industry. Efforts such as Equal Pay Reporting and the Women in Finance Charter are a nudge from government but the industry is getting ahead with culture change anyway. It needs to and, more importantly, it wants to…because it makes good business sense.

The world is changing and the future brings challenges the industry needs to tackle. Brexit, Technology, empowered and discerning consumers all mean the industry needs to respond and be reflective of its customers. The only way to do that is by having employees that mirror this. But how do we make this happen?

Measuring
At Zurich, we are fully committed to embedding diversity and inclusion throughout our organisation. This is led from the top and we commit ourselves to measure and report our progress - it is important for all organisations to measure what they are achieving. As well as being signatories of the Women in Finance Charter, we were also the first global insurer to achieve EDGE (Economic Dividends for Gender Equality) Certification.

Benchmarking exercises such as these help you understand where the blockages are and then put in place interventions such as targeted leadership development programmes; sponsorship, mentoring and coaching; and changes to how we recruit, retain and promote.

Employers must also tackle unconscious bias which is important as evidence suggests many people tend to recruit in their own image. Having taken part in this training and seen others have their lightbulb moment, it is clear people are often oblivious to their natural inclinations (and disinclinations).

Lack of flexible working has also been identified as a driver to low female representation in senior roles.  I believe Zurich’s FlexWork programme empowers teams to find intelligent ways of working that deliver for the business and customers whilst supporting employees’ own work-life needs.

Encouragement
Lastly, the industry has to really up its game on encouraging women into the industry in the first place. Insurance offers so much variety but, just like our science and engineering sector colleagues, it hasn’t traditionally been the first port of call for females.

One way to mitigate this is to ensure 50:50 representation on early careers intake such as apprenticeships, NEET (a person not in education, employment or training) work programmes and graduate schemes.

As a further step, we believe this journey starts even earlier on and our schools’ engagement programme shines a light on what the insurance industry does and also discusses insurance careers and general skills advice to pupils – female and male – with no previous interaction with the industry. It’s bearing fruit. Those children are fascinated with what we do and one 13 year old girl left the programme saying “I want to be an underwriter”.

This is music to my ears and I’m sure many in the industry. Gender diversity is an area where we can all work together to bring about change and through efforts like the Women in Finance Charter, the Dive-In Festival and the Gender Inclusion Network, there are many opportunities for insurers and brokers to get involved.

Sophie Timms is head of media, public affairs and corporate responsibility at Zurich Insurance UK. She is also a founder of Zurich UK’s Women’s Innovation Network (WIN) and a member of the insurance industry’s Gender Inclusion Network.