Insurance Sector Snapshot
The insurance sector is made up of four main segments:
Employment statistics on three key occupations in this sector
are outlined below. Note these workers are employed across a
number of financial services sectors, not only in insurance.
•
health insurance, which covers hospital, medical, dental,
pharmaceutical and funeral expenses
•
life insurance, which provides money in the event of an
individual’s death, disablement, or serious illness
•
general insurance, which covers loss from events such as car
accidents, floods, break-ins, or malpractice; and also includes
workers compensation and personal injury insurance, and
•
Employment trends
insurance brokers, which act as impartial agents in selling
insurance policies and also often provide risk management
and other related services.
Key Training Package qualifications used by this sector include
Certificate III in Insurance Broking, Certificate III in General
Insurance and Advanced Diploma of Insurance Broking.
An analysis of insurance industry trends to 2020,1 highlighted the
following issues impacting on the sector in coming years:
•
Online environment – Internet, mobility and social networking
have created a new generation of customers who demand
simplicity, speed and convenience. Customers may be more
willing to buy direct using their online and offline ‘trust’ network.
•
Data – Historically, the insurance sector has used, primarily,
internal data in a structured format to make tactical and
operational decisions. However, in the next decade the
industry will increasingly use large amounts of real-time
sensor data, unstructured data from social networks, and
multimedia data, such as text, voice and video.
•
Natural events – The severity and frequency of catastrophic
events is increasing. Over the next decade, the insurance
sector could be overwhelmed with catastrophic events,
reducing capacity and raising prices. Alternatively, new
sensing and monitoring technology, together with risk
transfer mechanisms, could cushion insurers against
abnormal losses.
•
Emerging economies – As consumption increases in emerging
economies, the insurance market is expected to grow, resulting
in big opportunities for Australian insurers.
Outlook for the sector
In the next five years, better conditions are predicted for most
sectors. Health insurance and insurance brokerage are looking
brightest due to a better investment environment, greater
demand for insurance, higher premium prices and, in the case
of brokers’ expansion into risk consulting, advisory and support
services. General insurance will continue to grow but more
modestly. Life insurance revenue is expected to decline due to a
strong run prior to 2013–2014.
Workforce
The number of people employed in each segment is outlined
below. Employment projections for the next five years show that
there will be limited, if any, growth in staff numbers.
Current
employment
Projected
employment in
2017
Health insurance
12,783
13,215
Life insurance
28,373
28,339
General insurance
21,860
22,541
Insurance brokers
24,902
24,084
This indicates the insurance workforce will need to be competent
and comfortable working in an online environment, able to source
high-level analytical skills to make sense of new ways of accessing
data, able to translate environmental events into dollars at risk,
competent in working within, and forming partnerships with,
companies in foreign markets, particularly in the Asia-Pacific
region. Communication skills continue to be important, particularly
with extra legislative pressure on company boards to understand
risk and focus on ensuring households and businesses do not suffer
unexpected losses due to misunderstandings about coverage2.
1 PWC, 2012, Insurance 2020
2 A. Hay, 2012, ‘Q&A’, Brisbane Legal Magazine
Insurance, Money Market
and Statistical Clerks
Insurance agents
Insurance investigators
and loss adjusters
Current employment
32,800
12,500
8,300
Projected employment in 2017
31,600
11,500
9,200
Projected employment growth – 5 years
Decline
Decline
Strong
Future job openings
Average
Below average
Below average
$1,057
$1,250
$1,175
35
37
44
49.3%
35.2%
31.6%
81.7%
84.6%
85.2%
Median weekly earnings before tax (av. $1,153)
Median age (av. 40)
Female share of full-time employment (av. 24.8%)
Full-time share of employment (av. 63.1%)
Extract from IBSA’s Financial Services Workforce Development Strategy November 2014