Tackling gender imbalance remains a priority for the global insurance industry
This year’s global festival for diversity and inclusion (D&I), Dive In, identified that gender balance is still considered the most pressing issue that insurers need to address
Dive In is sponsored by AXA XL, Lloyd’s, Zurich and Chubb, alongside numerous other insurance giants. The survey of over 5,000 of Dive In’s attendees sought to uncover some of the more prominent areas that respondents felt insurers needed to focus on in order to make their service more inclusive. After determining that 94 per cent of those asked agreed that inclusion is a client-facing issue, the survey revealed that the majority of respondents (54 per cent) felt that gender balance was an area of concern, especially in the Middle East and the Americas, where gender equality was cited as a key barrier that insurers needed to overcome.
On the other hand, in Europe and the UK, mental health was considered of high importance, with 47 per cent of respondents naming this as an issue in terms of inclusiveness. Elsewhere, 38 per cent of respondents felt that culture and ethnicity was a pressing issue, and 28 per cent insisted that family and care responsibility came high on the list of issues that needed attention.
Responding to the results of the survey, Pauline Miller, Head of Talent Development and Inclusion at Lloyd’s, argued that the new research highlighted the significance of D&I as a ‘commercial imperative’ all over the world.
Jason Groves, Chair of the Dive In committee and Global Director of media relations at Marsh, added: “The adoption of the festival in places like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria shows that more and more companies have become determined to build inclusive workplaces, enabling them to attract top talent. By coming together to share good D&I practices we can help them drive cultural change more effectively.”