Claims sector is facing recruitment meltdown

The claims sector of the insurance market is facing an impending crisis in recruitment, industry experts have warned.

The warning, voiced at the CII Conference in Glasgow, suggested that an image problem, combined with unattractive salaries, has resulted in a dearth in the quality and quantity of potential candidates searching for employment in claims.

Bob Foster, claims director at Brit Insurance, said the claims division was the most important part of any insurance company and that the sector desperately needed "greater exposure to the outside world" and to "set higher levels of education".

This is a view shared by Nicholas Burrell, director, IPS Group, who said: "It is a quality crisis. There are very good people in more senior roles but they are the product of the graduate trainee schemes in the 1980s and 1990s when they were handpicked for the positions.

"The trainee schemes have generally been disbanded due to consolidation, mergers and the recession in the 90s.

"When costs were cut, the trainee schemes were the first to go and in many cases were never picked up again."

Mr Burrell claimed that this lack of investment in people had resulted in the dearth of quality candidates available to the claims sector generally.

However, while David Williams, claims director at Axa, agreed that there was an image problem that needed to be tackled, he insisted that if firms wanted quality staff they needed to provide it from within: "The claims sector needs to take a long-term approach to the problem.

"We encourage our staff to take the appropriate qualifications and we will spend at least six to eight weeks training them. Firms need to look within and 'grow' their own talent."