Insurance Industry Employment Trends: 1990-2014 (August, 2015)

The U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) just published data as of August 2015 on detailed insurance industry employment, and the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.) website contains updated multi-decade trend data in chart form. (The insurance industry/sector-specific data are not seasonally adjusted and are one month behind the national data; accordingly, the report released on October 2 provides national data for September 2015 and industry/sector-specific data for August 2015.) Data for the last few months are preliminary and are often revised later, but revisions are usually small. The I.I.I.’s slides show employment trends for property/casualty (P/C), life/annuity, health (mainly medical expense) insurers, and reinsurers, agents & brokers, independent claims adjusters, and third-party administrators.

In August 2015, on a year-over-year basis, virtually every subsector of insurance industry employment was up, with many subsectors rising solidly. P/C carrier employment fell by 2,700 (-0.5 percent) in August 2015 vs. July 2015. For the 12 months ending in August 2015, P/C carrier employment rose by 2,900, or 0.6 percent to 524,900. P/C carrier employment has generally been rising for the last 18 months, but has slipped in the last two months. It is now back to where it was in May 2015 (and before that, in the fourth quarter of 2012).

Employment by life/annuity carriers rose in August 2015 vs. August 2014 (up 20,000, or 5.8 percent) to 366,800. This is the largest year-over-year percentage growth in life/annuity carrier employment in nearly 25 years (since April 1991, not counting the much higher year-over-year change created by BLS moving some jobs previously counted as life/annuity into the medical expense category). Life/annuity carrier employment stayed in a range of 340,000 plus or minus 2,000 for all of 2013 and half of 2014, but it broke out of that corridor on the upside, in June 2014. In prior years it was higher. For example, before 2004 it was more than 400,000. Life/annuity carrier employment has not fallen for 16 consecutive months (and rose in 15 of those months). We can say that the long downward trend is over, although the gains are still small in historical context.

The health carrier segment has been gaining jobs quite steadily for decades. In August 2015 vs. August 2014 it rose sharply (up 27,000, or 5.5 percent) to 521,700. At least some of this growth is undoubtedly connected with the flood of health insurance applications, purchases, and claims attributable to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and some to population growth, but it is important to acknowledge that this rate of growth has been characteristic of this sector for decades—long before the ACA was proposed.

The agent/broker segment gained 18,600 jobs in August 2015 vs. August 2014 (up 2.56 percent) to 735,600. After losing jobs in the Great Recession (from 682,100 in the first month of the recession, December 2007, to 652,900 in the first month of recovery (July 2009), and on to a trough of 638,200 in September 2010, the segment has been fairly steadily gaining jobs and passed the pre-recession peak of 684,500 reached in July 2007. From the recent trough through August 2015, this segment has gained 97,400 jobs.

Among the smaller industry segments, reinsurance carrier employment in the United States rose in August 2015 vs. August 2014 (up 900, or +3.6 percent). Employment at independent claims-adjusting firms on a year-over-year basis for August 2015 fell by 3,300 to 50,300. Year-over-year employment in the category of third-party administration of insurance funds rose by 6,200 (+3.6 percent) to 177,400. This category has grown quite steadily for over two decades, though not as fast as employment at medical expense insurers. It was set back slightly by the Great Recession, but has generally added jobs since then.