Reshaping DEI in Insurance

The percentage of organisations in the insurance sector with a diversity strategy has risen steadily since 2017, when data began being collected. There are also an increasing number of other diversity characteristics being tracked, including LBGTQ+, social mobility, neurodiversity, disability, menopause, age and faith.

Overall, female representation is relatively stable until the senior manager mark, when it drops from the mid-forties to 36% and declines further across the senior levels.

Ethnic representation is low in the insurance and long-term savings sector and has decreased further over the last few years, from 16% in 2017 to 9% in 2021. This overall reduction is mostly due to a fall in Black, Asian and minority ethnic employees at entry and experienced non-manager level, as representation at executive level actually increased from 2% to 5%.

There was a decline in companies having a specific LGBTQ+ inclusion policy, from 36% in 2020 to 26% in 2021. At the same time, there has been a steady increase in the number of internal networks and external organisations supporting LGBTQ+ inclusion/ representation in the workplace.

Organisations have become more aware of social mobility as a category of diversity in recent years, with more and more companies capturing social data from their employees. Well over a quarter (29%) of companies are capturing data on social mobility in insurance and a further 20% are planning to do so in the future.

Neurodiversity is still emerging as a recognised DEI characteristic. As a result, it is not yet widely included in diversity data analysis. Only 14% of companies in the ABI survey have specific policies to support neurodiverse individuals in the workplace. None of the respondents have any recruitment targets for disabled people. But two thirds (66%) of companies work with external organisations for supporting inclusion or representation of disabled workers in the workplace.