Insurance Industry Employment Trends: 1990-2016 (April, 2016)

The U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) just published data as of April 2016 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 June 3 provides national data for May 2016 and industry/sector-specific data for April 2016.) 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 April 2016, on a year-over-year basis, employment in the insurance industry was up to varying degrees.

For the 12 months ending April 2016, P/C carrier employment rose by 3,000 (+0.6 percent) to 519,000. On a month-to-month basis, P/C carrier employment had fallen for most of 2015 but has risen in the last 3 months. P/C carrier employment is now even with where it was in January 2013.

Employment by life/annuity carriers rose in April 2016 vs. April 2015 (up 12,100, or +3.8 percent) to 331,100. Life/annuity carrier employment stayed in a range of 340,000 plus or minus 2,000 for all of 2013 and the first quarter of 2014, but it began dropping in March 2014 and reached a bottom a year later, in March 2015, at 318,500. It has been generally rising since then.

The health carrier segment has been gaining jobs quite steadily for decades. In April 2016 vs. April 2015 it rose sharply (up 20,600, or 4.0 percent) to 539,800. 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, 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 16,500 jobs in April 2016 vs. April 2015 (up 2.2 percent) to 772,800. However, this has not been a steady rise; the segment added 13,700 in the months of October 2015 and November 2015 alone, but then lost 7,800 in December 2015 and January 2016. The October/November rise was the largest two-month gain in this segment in the last 25 years (the next highest was 12,200 in May to June 2011.) This segment had 682,100 employed in December 2007, the first month of the recession, dropped to a trough of 638,200 in September 2010, then began gaining and passed the pre-recession peak of 684,500 (reached in July 2007). From the recent trough through April 2016, this segment has gained 134,600 jobs.

Among the smaller industry segments, reinsurance carrier employment in the U.S. rose in April 2016 vs. April 2015 (up 100, or 4.0 percent) to 24,700. Employment at independent claims-adjusting firms on a year-over-year basis for April 2016 rose by 300 (+0.5 percent) to 56,100. Year-over-year employment in the category of third-party administration of insurance funds rose by 1,300 (0.7 percent) to 175,100. 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.