Modern Insurance Magazine Issue 61

INTERVIEWS
Progressing
Together
Hannah, research has demonstrated that Social
Mobility is just one layer of inequality affecting
Q today’s insurance industry. From your experience
leading the ABI, to what extent have you encountered a
perception that career progression is not always directly
related to job performance across the sector?
A
Progression should always be linked to how well
someone performs in their role and the skills they
bring to the table. Unfortunately, we can’t say
that’s always what is happening. Research shows that
employees from lower socio-economic backgrounds
take 25% longer to progress in financial services, despite
no evidence of poorer performance. Opaque processes
around promotion, work allocation and senior level
sponsorship have all been identified as issues.
All too often, this results in career progression being
based on someone’s family and academic connections or
shared social experiences, at the expense of productivity,
creativity and innovation.
We’re committed to changing this. Our DEI Blueprint
encourages a stronger focus on socio-economic status,
particularly around efforts to attract people from diverse
backgrounds into the sector and support them as they
grow within the industry.
Data is the glue that pins this all together. We’re working
with our members to develop a consistent set of metrics
on Social Mobility, so gaps can be identified alongside
barriers and sticking points within these organisations.
From this, organisations within the insurance industry can
focus their efforts accordingly.
The ABI has been working very closely with the
Social Mobility taskforce, alongside a number of
Q other relevant bodies. The resulting data is really
eye-opening.
As a result of collaborating with such networks, what
have been your key takeaways so far?
A
with Hannah Gurga
The Association of British Insurers (ABI) is driving change across the UK financial services sector through their
commitment to improving socio-economic diversity. Modern Insurance Magazine sat with Hannah Gurga,
Director General, to discuss the reality of Social Mobility in the insurance industry, the steps that are being
taken to address it, and the importance of healthy and inclusive cultures.
We’re proud to have partnered with several
initiatives which are making significant progress
throughout the sector. The City of London’s
Socio-Economic Diversity Taskforce was instrumental
in embedding efforts to strengthen inclusion. The ABI
participated in the Taskforce, which ran for two-years and
aimed to boost socio-economic diversity at senior levels
in UK financial services, laying the foundations for an
industry where high performance is valued over ‘fit’ and
‘polish’.
The partnership was invaluable in terms of building a
more complete understanding of what the social makeup
of our industry looks like, as well as identifying steps
to improve it. The Bridge Group research (which the
Taskforce commissioned) was indeed incredibly eyeopening.
In 2020, nine out of ten senior roles in financial
services were held by people from higher socio-economic
backgrounds. This isn’t representative of the society our
sector serves, where only one third of the UK working
population is from a higher socio-economic background.
It also exposed the stark lack of industry data on socioeconomic
background. That’s why we support the
Taskforce’s recommendation, stating that all employers
in UK financial services should collect such data on their
staff by 2025. We also support its call for 50% of senior
leaders to come from a working class or intermediate
background by 2030.
The Taskforce really reinforced the importance of
improving our understanding around the nuances of
how socio-economic background intersects with other
diversity characteristics. Collecting and publishing
appropriate industry data, as well as setting up socioeconomic
diversity networks, is essential to achieve this.
Progress Together was borne out of the Taskforce,
and it is now the first membership body to focus on
progression, retention and Social Mobility. It has also
accelerated efforts to drive socio-economic diversity at
senior levels across UK financial services. We’ve partnered
with Progress Together to help achieve a more diverse
financial services sector through collaboration and
sharing best practice - and we encourage our members to
do the same.
We also do all we can to help promote their work. For
example, Progress Together’s CEO, Sophie Hulm, took
12 | MODERN INSURANCE