Client Challenge: Finding Underwriters with specialized expertise
A leading North American Managing General Agent (MGA) specializing in niche insurance projects was restructuring to keep pace with growth as MGA is one of the fastest growing segments of the insurance industry. To capitalize on increasing demand, our client needed to hire seven underwriters with experience underwriting niche products within specific industry sectors, such as Sports, Leisure and Entertainment and Commercial Health & Wellness.
The market for underwriters in general is competitive, but it is particularly challenging to find and attract underwriters for MGA organizations that seek underwriters who can think outside of the box and have experience with niche & complex industries.
Our client had a lean HR team with no internal Talent Acquisition resources. This combined with the fact that underwriters with niche subject matter expertise are hard to find and don’t change employers often. The hardest part in convincing them to move to a new employer. They are well compensated, so salary is not enough. If they make a change, it will be for the next 10 years, so they need to be sure there is career growth and security.
Robertson’s Approach
Determine what matters most
Like many recruiting firms Robertson starts with a client intake meeting to review the job description. We know from experience that most job descriptions are overly ambitious; often requiring skills, competencies, and levels of experience beyond what is necessary for a given role or reasonable for a given compensation range. We worked with the client to determine the technical and leadership skills that mattered most; a strong analytical background, deep experience underwriting in their sector of expertise, ability to think “out-of-the-box” to address customer needs.
Leverage established Underwriter talent pools and pipelines
Given Robertson’s extensive experience in financial services, and deep networks in insurance, we knew who to ask to figure out who the potential candidates with the specialized expertise our client was looking for. This helped us uncover a short list of potential candidates quickly. The challenge was getting them to talk to us about a new job opportunity. Our experience and connections in the insurance industry provided credibility and trust with potential candidates.
Proactive Outreach to gather Candidate Insight
Then we carefully probed to understand their career goals and what motivated them. We brought this insight back and strategized with our client about not just what want it was going to take to convince these subject matter experts to accept role with them.
Tailor the Employer Brand for Each Candidate
Our conversations with candidates helped our client realize they needed to be more competitive in the market; offering incentives such as flexible working models and competitive compensation to convince these specialized commercial insurance underwriters to even consider making a move. However, the real work we provided was helping each short-listed candidate see the value in the non-financial benefits our client had to offer such as remote work, and career development and advancement opportunities. For each candidate we spent the time to understand what they valued and their career goals. For some it was the ability to work at a company with a better culture and work-life balance. For others it was the ability to have a broader scope of responsibility and impact. We then explained how our client could deliver against their needs better than current employer.
Results
Robertson placed five highly specialized commercial underwriters with expertise in Environmental Underwriting, Inland Marine, Health & Wellness and Sports, Leisure & Entertainment within a forty-dayperiod. All of them are still employed by our client, and three have been promoted. Our work for this client demonstrates Robertson ability to use its deep knowledge of insurance industry talent pools combined with candidate insight to help our clients hire the top calibre insurance talent they need to achieve their business goals.
