The Women in Insurance Initiative has rebranded as the Women in Insurance Collective (WIIC), announcing a new non-profit structure and a leadership team drawn from across the industry's senior ranks.
The organization will be led by Margaret Resce Milkint, global insurance practice leader at DSG Global; Laura Deutscher, an insurance industry leader and board director; Tanya Krochta, executive vice president, COO and acting CEO at ACORD; and Beth Jarecki, CEO at Omnia Paratus. The four will work alongside volunteers from across the insurance ecosystem, with the stated mission of cultivating an inclusive industry where all insurance professionals can thrive.
WIIC plans to deliver that through outreach initiatives, committees, community-focused events and collaboration with mission-aligned organizations.
The rebrand arrives at a moment of considerable tension in the US insurance industry's approach to diversity. Firms within the US insurance industry no longer see DEI as a key factor in recruiting C-suite members, with executive search firm Cowen Partners reporting that mandates to find diverse candidates accounted for around 50% of its searches in prior years but have been "virtually non-existent" in the past 12 months.
After a sustained effort to scale back diversity, equity and inclusion programmes at US employers, federal officials have continued to press corporate America on its remaining DEI initiatives, with a $17 million settlement with IBM and a lawsuit against Nike among recent developments.
The data that underprinned WIIC's work makes clear the scale of the gap its founders are attempting to close. Women comprise nearly 60% of the US insurance workforce but hold only 33.5% of executive positions and just 40% of board seats.
Meanwhile, almost 90% of CEOs at the largest US insurance companies are white men. Women make up only 26% of all agency owners and principals, according to research from Liberty Mutual, a figure that sits in sharp contrast to their overall representation in the workforce.
Since 2012, women have comprised roughly 59% of the insurance industry workforce each year, yet that overall share masks significant variation by role. Women account for 78.7% of insurance claims and processing clerks but just 51.1% of insurance sales agents, and their representation continues to thin sharply as seniority increases.
WIIC's launch also coincides with a deepening talent crisis that lends practical urgency to its mission.
In the US alone, 400,000 people in the insurance profession are expected to leave the industry by 2026, according to industry analysts. It is estimated that over the next 15 years, 50% of the current insurance workforce will retire, leaving more than 400,000 potential open positions, compounded by the fact that only 4% of millennials are interested in pursuing a career in insurance.
Against that backdrop, the continued under-representation of women in leadership roles amounts to a structural inefficiency the industry can ill afford. Research by McKinsey showed that companies ranking in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 21% more likely to outperform on profitability and 27% more likely to demonstrate superior value creation.
Meanwhile, the decision to operate as a non-profit is significant. It signals that WIIC is positioning itself as a permanent fixture in the industry's institutional landscape rather than a corporate-funded initiative that could be wound down or rebranded under political pressure.
Whether the collective can build the sustained community and industry influence its founders are aiming for will depend on how many organizations across the insurance ecosystem choose to back its work - and how many individual professionals show up.
