Liberty’s Moore: London market “hasn’t done a good enough job” in attracting right recruits

The London market has failed to attract the necessary talent because it is “fragmented and unable to articulate its value proposition”, with data suggesting the recruitment pipeline is insufficient to meet growth demands, Liberty Mutual’s Matthew Moore has warned.

Speaking to The Insurer TV, Moore, who is president of underwriting for Liberty Mutual Insurance Global Risk Solutions and chairman of the London Market Group (LMG), pointed to the alarming gap between the representation of under 30s and over 50s in the insurance industry and the need to turn this problem around quickly.

“What’s very clear from the data that we’ve generated in terms of the representation of under 30s versus over 50s is that the pipeline of talent coming into our market just isn’t sufficient for us to satisfy our [industry’s] actual commercial ambitions,” Moore warned.

“In terms of all the opportunities that we’ve got – whether that’s around digital, whether it’s around new products, whether that’s around all the new opportunities in a fast-changing environment – we just can’t serve them unless we’ve got the right recruits into our market. And historically we just haven’t done a good enough job in achieving that,” he added.

The talent drought has long been debated in the insurance market. Moore said he believes the London market’s issues stem in part from its fragmentation, making it unable to establish a proposition with any scale or consistency.

Matthew Moore

This is just one of the key drivers behind the LMG’s launch of a nationwide campaign across the UK dedicated to making specialty insurance a destination career.

This long-term campaign aims to raise awareness of the London market through the promotion of roles via a series of films, in addition to recruiting from universities and engaging with school leavers. Over the next three to five years it will seek to increase engagement with those seeking their first full-time job in the insurance industry.

According to Moore, the industry must also communicate its values and mission more clearly in order to attract talent.

“We haven’t been intentional enough about what really makes us special. We’ve got a fantastic proposition in the specialty London market and it’s really getting a huge amount of focus and the ability to articulate that,” Moore added.

Data essential

Moore also spoke about the importance of data as it provides the necessary insight into the effectiveness of this type of initiative from the LMG.

He believes that tracking data can also help drive the efficiency of recruiting and pave the way for future opportunities to attract more talent.

Some of the data for this initiative will be derived through a portal that will match roles in the London market with the right individuals.

“We know that in all sorts of ways of looking at our human resources, if we don’t capture the data we’re not going to make the best decisions. So this is absolutely built in. Because this is fully digitally integrated and we’re using the portal, that means we’re going to capture data in the short, the medium and the long term,” Moore noted.

In this five-minute video, Moore discusses the following topics in more detail:

-          How the new LMG campaign will aim to attract talent into the industry

-          What the industry can offer incoming talent

-          How data will help track success for this initiative

-          What more the industry can do to attract talent