Insurance Industry Employment Trends: 1990-2018 (June 2018)

By Steven Weisbart, Chief Economist

The U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) just published data as of June 2018 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 in our charts are not seasonally adjusted and are one month behind the national data; accordingly, the BLS report released on August 3, 2018, provides national data for July 2018 and industry/sector-specific data for June 2018.) Data for the last few months are preliminary and are often revised later, but revisions are usually small. The I.I.I. slides show employment trends for property/casualty (P/C), life/annuity, health (mainly medical expense) insurers, and reinsurers, agents and brokers, independent claims adjusters and third-party administrators.

Employment growth in the general U.S. economy continues to be strong. In June 2018 there were 2.40 million more people employed in nonfarm jobs than a year earlier (+1.6 percent)—an unusually strong increase this late in the business cycle. In the service sector overall, employment was up by 1.4 percent year-over-year in June 2018. As for the insurance industry, on a year-over-year basis, employment changes in most major segments of the insurance industry were mixed.

For the 12 months ending June 2018, P/C carrier employment fell by 1,700 (-0.3 percent) to 555,800. Taking a slightly longer perspective, employment in the P/C sector has stayed in a small range of 549,000 to 560,000 for the past 29 months. The last major reclassification of subsectors took place in 2005; in March of that year P/C employment was at 547,000. Since then it sank to a low of 513,500 in January 2014, but grew strongly in 2015 (up 30,500 for that year, or +5.9 percent).

Employment by life/annuity carriers was basically flat in June 2018 vs. June 2017 (down 500, or -0.1 percent) to 351,300. Employment in the month of June rose comparatively sharply, up by 3,600 (+1.0 percent), which was the second straight month of employment growth (May was up 2,800, or 0.8 percent). However, employment in this segment has fallen in nine of the last 15 months. Even so, it has remained in the range of 345,000 to 351,000 for 30 consecutive months.

For the 12 months ending in June 2018, health carrier employment rose by 12,300 (+2.3 percent) to 510,400. The health carrier segment had been gaining jobs quite steadily for decades. However, the health carrier sector had a major reclassification beginning in March 2015, which reset the sector’s employment from 517,900 in March 2015 to 457,200 in March 2016. Since then, employment in this sector rose by 53,200, or +11.2 percent.

The agent/broker segment gained 7,000 jobs in June 2018 over June 2017 (up 0.9 percent) to 809,800. In 2018 employment growth in this category has been highly variable. It dropped in January 2018 (down 4,700), but mostly restored that loss in February (up 4,000), dropped again in March (down 800), rose again in April (up 1,000), and was essentially flat in May (up 400) and June (up 500). This continued a pattern from the end of 2017 (down 400 in November, up 500 in December). Employment totals in this subsector have stayed in the 800,000 to 810,000 range for 17 months (since February 2017).

Among the smaller industry segments, reinsurance carrier employment in the U.S. was up by 800 in June 2018 vs. June 2017 to 26,900 (+3.1 percent). Employment at independent claims-adjusting firms on a year-over-year basis for June 2018 rose by 300, to 59,800. Year-over-year employment in the category of third-party administration of insurance funds rose for a second-straight month by 4,900 (+2.6 percent), to 193,900. This category has grown quite steadily for more than 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. It is currently at an all-time peak.