Insurance companies are grappling with a proliferation of risks on all sides, forcing them to reconsider their business models. Innovation, technology, data, analytics, the internet and mobile continue to disrupt the market. The war for talent and changing customer expectations mean it’s harder than ever for insurers to create strategies to differentiate themselves. Combine these challenges with low interest rates, demographic changes, increased competition and consolidation, and catastrophes. Insurers are turning to digitization, cost optimization, M&A and new ways to work as survival strategies.
To address these challenges and meet their business goals, insurers need systemic people and organizational strategies. Our insurance consultants devise these strategies for the world’s leading insurance companies, helping to identify future leaders, drive development, accelerate readiness, and energize transitions. We build smart leadership strategies based on incisive data insights and in-depth industry expertise. We guide insurers in establishing processes and hiring the talent necessary to propel these strategies and build dynamic cultures of success.
How We Can Help
Your performance and results are what matters. We partner with you to continually evolve and optimize to reflect the changing needs of your business. We help our insurance clients address challenges like these.
1
Insurance is suffering from a talent shortage driven by: a lack of ready-to-promote leaders, stiff competition for top talent, demographic issues, retention challenges and a shortage of diversity. Insurance companies face a potential leadership void.
We can help you build an agile, future-ready workforce and leadership pipeline. First, we assess and identify the right talent for development and advancement to take on leadership roles. Second, to increase motivation and retention, we ensure your total reward and performance management framework aligns with your organization’s strategies. Third, we show you how to incorporate diversity, equity and inclusion into your talent acquisition, talent management and succession strategies. And fourth, to help you make an impact now, we target and recruit top talent in insurance and other industries. We help provide you with the leadership and talent management initiatives you need to move into the future with confidence.
2
The insurance industry isn’t known for disruption and change. But as insurance companies continue to innovate and invest in technology, artificial intelligence, machine learning, wearables, sensors, and data and analytics, they need to consider whether they have the talent and leadership needed to excel in the insurance industry of the future.
Our insurance consultants work with you to develop a holistic strategy that accelerates digital transformation via talent. We develop a success profile that defines the skills and core capabilities needed for the future of work. We identify capability gaps in your workforce and assist you to recruit new talent, develop existing talent and retain essential talent to fill those gaps.
3
Insurers are under pressure to do more with less, given a low-rate and low-return environment. As a result, many insurance companies are looking to adopt flatter organizational structures and contemplating various cost-optimization tactics.
We help you make informed, strategic decisions about how to make your organization more efficient and cost-effective. We work with organizations going through mergers and acquisitions and other restructurings, and use our market reach and comprehensive data to advise on decisions about structures, compensation and benefits. We design organizational and talent management structures that align with your business goals and ensure that you’ve got the right people in the right places. In short, we work with you to confirm that everything you do adds value to your bottom line.
Client Results
"The initiatives that have made a difference were transformative education, measuring and improving leader cultural competence, and creating shared accountability. Based on Korn Ferry’s recommendation, we decided to take a targeted approach to address areas of the business that had the most opportunity.”
Lorie Valle-Yañez, Chief Diversity Officer, MassMutual Life Insurance
Selecting Agile Leaders for a Large Insurance Provider
A major US property and casualty insurance provider with over 70,000 employees was in the midst of a rapid internal and external transformation that required flexible, agile leaders to drive the necessary change. However, the company had a weak bench for business unit leaders (BULs). Korn Ferry recommended agile training support for leaders and change management. Comprehensive analytics were conducted to determine the BUL team’s readiness and capability to take on a significantly more challenging and agile executive role. As a result, the client is better equipped to manage transformation, with clarity around existing capabilities and the development required to build more agile leaders.
Preparing for a Changing Workforce Through Diversity Training
The client, a leading insurance provider with headquarters in New York, has 30,000 employees and is a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Korn Ferry has provided leadership development services and content to the client for over 15 years. With Korn Ferry’s intervention, the client reported saving $2 million over 2.5 years and enhancing both their corporate culture and leadership development. The client’s approach to diversity training provided opportunities for learning, creating an inclusive environment, and improving engagement and development at every level of the organization.
