How the Insurance Industry Is Tackling the Talent Crisis

• February 1, 2026

By Mindi Zissman

Generation Z, now 13-28 years old, isn’t asking for anything new—just the same things their baby boomer grandparents wanted and their younger Generation Alpha counterparts will demand: a culture that’s real, benefits that matter, pay that reflects impact and growth that doesn’t stall.

So, why is the insurance industry—which has all of that and more—approaching a 400,000-worker deficit as boomers retire?

The consensus among experts is that the next wave of talent isn’t avoiding careers in insurance. The real issue is that younger generations don’t even know that fulfilling insurance careers exist.

“Those 400,000 jobs? They’re not going to be filled tomorrow. But there’s nothing that says they can’t be filled in the next five to 10 years,” says Johanna Holling, volunteer relations program manager at Invest^SM, a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit administered by the Big “I.”

“The investment in the next generation needs to start now, and it requires all of us coming together to show them why a career in insurance is the best professional choice any of us ever made,” Holling says.

We all know insurance is a relationship business. But those connections aren’t limited to clients—they also include the future colleagues the industry hopes to draw into the profession. Fortunately, younger generations place a high value on people-first cultures and meaningful interactions, making internal relationships a critical tool for bringing new talent into the industry.

In fact, college juniors and seniors pursuing insurance-related careers show a clear preference for organizations that prioritize people—valuing diversity, fairness, mental well-being, equitable pay and active community support, according to Gamma Iota Sigma’s (GIS) 2025 “Annual Student Recruiting Survey.”

Further, when comparing employers, students most often highlighted corporate culture as their key differentiator, including how teams work together, communicate and create an environment people are proud to be part of.

Telling the story of insurance, meeting young professionals where they are and establishing tried-and-true mentorship, internship and professional development programs are all ways agents are capturing the attention of younger generations and paving the way to new and fulfilling insurance careers.

To address the talent shortage, here are five successful, replicable strategies already in motion to recruit the next wave of insurance talent in 2026 and beyond:

1) Share the Story of Insurance

 The path to solving the industry’s talent gap starts with storytelling.

“We’re fortunate to be in a very applied and useful industry,” says David Marlett, managing director of Brantley Risk and Insurance Center at Appalachian State University. “There are articles and news stories about natural disasters, health challenges and employment hurdles daily.”

“Once students connect the dots and begin to see how important it is to have a functional insurance market for the overall health of people and society, they start to gain clarity into how agents, brokers and carriers are doing good, important, meaningful work that protects people through their darkest moments,” Marlett says.

However, insurance is often misunderstood. Most students and young professionals have a skewed perception of the industry as boring and untrustworthy. They picture someone stuck behind a desk from 9 to 5, maybe even hustling clients rather than helping them.

Those who actually work in insurance know those sentiments couldn’t be further from the truth, and it’s the industry’s responsibility to correct the narrative.

In Marlett’s experience, once students and young professionals see the critical role of insurance in their families and communities, they shed their misperceptions about the industry and begin to envision themselves as part of its meaningful work. With three decades under its belt, the Brantley Risk and Insurance Center has honed its approach to showing students just how relevant and impactful insurance is in their everyday lives.

“Insurance is a service industry, a helping industry,” Marlett says. “We help students understand that insurance is a great career. It’s not what they’ve heard or seen on TV or in the movies.”

“We’re bridging the gap to the real world of insurance and educating students about the opportunities—attractive job placement, talented colleagues, helping people in their worst moments and great work-life balance,” he adds. “We’re helping them learn what insurance professionals really do.”

Take action: Craft your own story of insurance that resonates with your community.

• Consider recent events or challenges that have affected your local area and highlight the ways insurance has helped to buffer and protect against these hardships.
• Record short videos of your team sharing why they chose a career in insurance in the first place and what keeps them motivated to continue in the profession. Share them on social media, on your website or in your company newsletter.
• Share real-life examples or case studies from your agency that demonstrate the tangible impact insurance has had on clients’ lives, making the value of your work relatable and memorable.

2) Meet Younger People Where They Are

If you’re wondering where to find the next wave of young talent, you’ll find them on social media. And when it comes to securing a job or internship, most of them are using Instagram (64%), Twitter or X (56%) or even TikTok (46%) to do so, according to Zety’s “2025 Gen Z Career Trends Report.”

What’s more, 76% of surveyed Gen Z employees use Instagram for career content—significantly more than the 34% who rely on LinkedIn.

“Whenever we post on social media, we try to be authentic about who we are, what we stand for and how we manage our teams,” says Mark Flippen, CEO and co-founder of New York-based insurance brokerage LION Specialty. “When you’re out there with a strong point of view and being transparent about your culture, it helps to attract the right types of people for your agency, and it also deters those who are less aligned with your values from pursuing your company.”

Flippen and his team use social media as one way to share what their culture is like, how their team functions and what they expect of employees. “We’ve had a lot of success using social media to find the right candidates who are collaborative and great at their craft,” Flippen says. “They’re out there, you just have to find them.”

Technology, InsurTech innovation and the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) are modernizing insurance and transforming it into a more dynamic career path. This evolution strongly resonates with younger generations.

Digital tools, data-rich platforms and automation are replacing legacy paper-heavy workflows and opening new avenues for roles in analytics, product design, user experience (UX), cybersecurity and AI-driven risk modeling. These advancements provide opportunities for early-career professionals to focus on strategic thinking, creativity and problem-solving—job attributes they value highly.

“Younger generations are really dialed into technology, and AI is going to be native to students who will be graduating from high school in the next few years,” Flippen says. “We can position a career in insurance as an opportunity for young people to influence change in the organization. They can help people like me who didn’t grow up with these technologies, and apply their skills to automate operations, revolutionize outdated systems and integrate AI into workflows.”

Take action: Get creative with online recruitment strategies.

• Consider starting an agency Instagram or TikTok account to reach more students and young professionals.
• Don’t be afraid to have fun and get silly and find ways to tap into current viral trends as another way to tell your agency’s insurance story. Share details about your firm, from your holiday party outings and fun things around the office to information about how your firm reduces business risk.
• Be authentic, relatable and personable. Consider sharing short videos and personal posts from your leadership.

Take action: Lead with tech opportunities at your agency and position insurance as a future-forward profession where technology enables meaningful impact. List all the ways your agency uses advanced technology and consider interviewing those teammates who utilize it. Then share that information—on social media!

3) Get Involved With Local High Schools

A career in insurance is far from the minds of most teenagers. But there’s a huge opportunity to connect with and educate high school students about the benefits of being an insurance professional, which can shape their post-graduate decisions.

“Young people who find out about our program in college often say they wish they had learned about it in high school,” says Whitnee Dillard, executive director of Invest, which serves approximately 1,000 students a year and has worked with over 33,000 since its inception in 1970.

“A lot of people can’t afford a four-year college degree, and many students accrue massive amounts of debt in pursuit of higher education,” Dillard says. “Helping young people learn about a career path they can get started in without having to go the traditional college route can be a huge benefit to them and their overall financial wellness.”

Invest has served over 900 high schools, community colleges and workforce development programs nationwide. Its 13-module online program offers students a comprehensive introduction to insurance, with a focus on property & casualty, life and health. The curriculum covers insurance-specific terms, different roles and careers, how to run an agency and more.

“The insurance fairy isn’t going to fly in and drop 400,000 workers off at the insurance business doorsteps. All of us are going to have to come together to make it happen.”

Johanna Holling, volunteer relations program manager at Invest.

A teacher or advisor can help to implement and guide students through the program, but students have the flexibility to complete it at their own pace. The program helps to facilitate pathways to internships, mentorships, job shadowing days and more with local independent agencies.

“Our program is different than a traditional insurance curriculum,” Dillard says. “We prioritize getting local insurance professionals from independent agencies to come into the classroom and present about their own real-world experiences.”

Insurance carrier Dryden Mutual is just one of many companies that have directly benefited from its involvement with Invest. Its team offers internships to students who have completed the program. In all, Dryden has hired 75 Invest students over the past 15 years, who all started as interns, directly referred from Invest.

Take action: Help expose more young people to insurance education and careers by getting involved with Invest. Go to investprogram.org/start and:

1. Join an Invest 101 information call.
2. Sign up to volunteer in a classroom.
3. Share your insurance story through the “What’s Your
   In Campaign.”
4. Subscribe to the Invest newsletter.
5. Make a tax-deductible donation.

4) Offer College-Level Scholarships and Internships

Experienced insurance professionals are key to inspiring interest in the insurance industry.

“There’s not a week that goes by that we don’t have an insurance professional in the classroom sharing their expertise in courses like insurance operations, commercial insurance and risk management,” Marlett says. “There’s no quick fix. Independent agencies must invest the time and energy into building their brand with the student population.”

“You need to be in person in the classroom, not just at the career fair once a year,” Marlett continues. “Volunteer to be a guest speaker. Set up an internship program that increases your visibility and talent early on. You may hire an exceptional intern, and once they’re back on campus [in their] senior year, you’ve got a new advocate. Even in the years you aren’t hiring, be present and consistent.”

Nearly half of surveyed college juniors and seniors who are pursing insurance-related careers say they first learned about insurance from a faculty member, according to GIS.

Nationally, more than 100 universities offer majors, minors or concentrations in risk and insurance. And with more than 50 different career paths within the industry, there are many opportunities for students exposed to the profession to find a role that resonates with them.

Take action: Team up with local colleges and universities to set up an internship program.

• Seek out insurance program advisors and administrators who can help connect you with specific courses that align with your agency’s areas of expertise and volunteer your time as a guest speaker in their classes.
• Start small and offer a job shadowing day for students to visit your agency, learn about the different roles and get a firsthand look at a career in insurance.
• When you’re ready, solicit faculty support to establish a student internship program. Align your internship dates with the course curriculum and partner with the educational institution to provide internship opportunities to its existing students.
• Establish a scholarship fund that rewards students’ special attributes or accomplishments that embody your agency’s culture and values. Consider holding fun team-building events at your agency throughout the year to raise funds.

5) Design professional development programs for your organization

High school and college programs are critical to funneling the younger generation into insurance, but what about the young workers already interested in insurance? They’ve got to be upskilled and trained, too. According to Flippen, one of the biggest challenges the industry faces is that only a select few large carriers and brokers have formal infrastructure to train new hires.

At LION Specialty, Flippen and his team provide inexperienced employees with a comprehensive introduction to insurance. New hires rotate through different divisions of the company to learn how deals come together, the process of working with a client throughout the policy lifecycle, how to read insurance policy forms and how to use different client education tools.

“It’s incumbent on all of us as professionals who got to learn this industry from our predecessors that we pay it forward for the next generation,” Flippen says. “Even if it’s just one to two people at a time, we need to teach them the business from the bottom up.”

Jessica Marshall, chief marketing and communications officer at Alabama-based wholesale brokerage CRC Group, runs the company’s internship program and knows firsthand how important it is to bring young people into the insurance profession.

CRC Group offers nine-week sales internship opportunities for students at universities with risk management and insurance programs. Those who excel in the program are hired after graduation, and after one year of employment they are eligible to apply for another program that offers deeper training across sales, technical insurance and professional development, with exposure to CRC Group and carrier partners’ leadership.

“The program has been a huge organic growth driver—it has brought in $155 million in revenue since we launched in July 2021,” Marshall says. “Just this year to date, the program has produced close to $55 million, putting these producers among the top wholesalers in the country.”

CRC Group isn’t stopping there, as Marshall and her team are busy creating two new programs. One will invest in producers earning $2 million-$4 million in revenue to provide them with team management skills that can elevate their book of business to the next level. The other is designed for those with sales experience outside the insurance industry. It provides in-depth technical insurance training over 12 weeks to prepare them for one of CRC Group’s specialized insurance teams.

Take action: Create a career development programs. You don’t need go big or go home. Start small and build a sustainable program that fits within the infrastructure and resource availability of your operation while providing real value and learning opportunities for incoming hires.

The insurance talent shortage must be tackled head on, and 2026 can be the year your agency invests in the industry’s long-term health.

“The insurance fairy isn’t going to fly in and drop 400,000 workers off at the insurance business doorsteps,” Holling says. “All of us are going to have to come together to make it happen.”

Mindi Zissman is president of Zissman Media, ghostwriters for risk and insurance businesses and executives.