US agent/broker sector gained 21K jobs in uneven 2015

Independent agents and brokers added a total of 21,100 jobs last year, though the sector has actually lost jobs in the past two months

Insurance News

By Lyle Adriano

The agent/broker sector considerably grew in 2015, according to data collected by the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.). The same data, however, revealed that the increase was not without some difficulty.

In January 2016, the agent/broker segment had 21,000 (or 2.8%) more jobs than it did in January 2015, raising the total number of jobs generated to about 770,000.

The climb to 770,000 was not an easy one, the I.I.I. study found. While the segment gained 13,700 in October and November 2015—the largest two-month gain for the sector in the last 25 years—it lost roughly 7,500 in the months of December 2015 and January 2016.

Employment results among the other insurance sectors were generally positive as well, according to the study.

P/C carrier employment rose by 0.1% for the 12 months ending in January, but on a month-to-month basis the segment’s employment has been falling for the last 19 months.

The life/annuity sector earned a 2.6% increase in employment from January 2015 to January 2016, having steadily improved since numbers hit their lowest in March 2015.

Due to the influx of health insurance applications, purchases, and claims through the ACA, employment in the health carrier segment continued to increase. In the 12 months ending in January 2016, the segment saw a 4.9% surge in jobs.

Among the smaller industry sectors, reinsurance carrier employment enjoyed a year-over-year 0.8% increase while independent claims-adjusting firms experienced a 0.2% bump in their employment. Employment related to third-party administration of insurance funds, on the other hand, saw a 0.3% decrease.
 

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