Job Seeking Strategies in Personal Lines

Mass layoffs. Unsustainable rate increases. The personal lines career market is a mess! There’s a surplus of applicants for every discipline, whereas once top talent only had to change that “open to work” button to start a firehose of weekly opportunities. Not so much these days. If you’re currently seeking a career in personal lines, you may be in need of new job seeking strategies.

While there are no silver bullets to a job search, Questpro’s Ben Volkmer shares some suggestions for different areas in personal lines, from a recruiter’s perspective:

Claims

• Vendors are your friend! Remember those vendors in restoration, repair networks, engineering, predictive analytics, legal, and elsewhere? Let’s all remember you’ve been lining their pockets over the last many years, and even if they can’t hire you, they are connected to decision-makers across the spectrum of your personal lines expertise. So don’t just doom scroll LinkedIn and pray once you’ve applied… while you’re on there, you might as well reconnect with your vendor network and ask for assistance.
• If you feel like that sales DNA is somewhere inside you, I can speak from personal experience that insurance is a terrific vertical to sell in! To get a leg up, try a sales training program like Sandler or Challenger to get the foundation a head start, then pursue opportunities in account management or sales on the vendor side. 
• Many hands are touching almost every dollar in claims, and we continue to see investors scoop up insurance service providers as a safe place to park their money.

Underwriting

• Check out paths into product management or MGA’s. Product management-led organizations like Progressive continue to beat their competitors up and down, and many of the new insurtechs that are actually turning a profit are led by former product management executives.
• As underwriting automation continues to mature, it will continue to displace jobs and put more power into the hands of product managers, often referred to as the “orchestra conductors” of the industry who sync the efforts of actuarial, underwriting, claims, regulatory, and technology, ultimately owning responsibility for the P&L results of a given state or region.
• If the financial and technology aspects of product management seem like a steep learning curve, think about MGAs. As pricing and profitability woes continue to spread across most traditional, admitted carriers, this has created opportunities in non-admitted/E&S areas that are often distributed by MGAs via independent agencies. 
• Once you build a network of agencies who can depend on you for critical market access, you can often earn more than you ever could in a carrier setting.

Product/Actuarial

• Look for lines with a shorter learning curve and prepare to compete. Don’t stay in your comfort zone and tap the same old direct competitors. 
• For the auto folks out there, it may be worth looking into a pivot toward mono-line commercial auto markets. With nuclear verdicts everywhere and continued demand for last-mile delivery driving continuous growth, there continues to be sizeable VC interest and new entrants utilizing data and telematics to gain an edge. 
• Aside from high-hazard areas like trucking, wheels are wheels, and I speak to a surprising number of auto PM’s who hesitate or ignore commercial lines opportunities.
• For those in homeowners, a pivot towards renters or warranty insurance may prove useful, as both areas are niche, consolidated among fewer companies, and seem to be able to turn a profit in almost any market. 
• High net worth and coastal property are additional spaces with profitability challenges where we will likely see newly founded companies try and take a different approach. 
• Above all, you are in a space where there are lots of MBAs and big brains, so be sure to up the preparation and diligence as you are engaged by potential employers.

Overall, stay nimble, stay humble, and don’t let your network die on the vine while you’re in an active search. Some of the best connections I’ve ever made have been at CE luncheons and conference happy hours, many of which are cost-effective or free to attend. It’s also a great time to ask old colleagues for coffee, lunch, or drinks. People are much more willing to take action to help your cause when you’re right in front of them.

We hope the remainder of 2024 is fruitful for your career and that these job seeking strategies and insights are helpful in your pursuit of finding your dream job!

To learn more about the various opportunities our team is actively recruiting for in personal lines and more, be sure to visit Questpro’s Career Portal!