Facts + Statistics: Careers and employment

 

Insurance industry employment

The insurance industry is a major U.S. employer, providing some 2.9 million jobs in 2022 that encompass a wide variety of careers, including engineering and data science, human resources, public relations, and financial analysts. Some jobs, including claims adjusters, actuaries and insurance underwriters, are unique to the insurance industry. But other roles are also needed, such as art historians and drone pilots. For further information, consult the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook, which includes these entries:​

• Actuaries
• Claims adjusters appraisers examiners and investigators
• Insurance sales agents
• Insurance underwriters 

 

Women in insurance

In 2022, women accounted for 47 percent of all workers, based on data from households in the Current Population Survey (CPS), an annual survey of business establishments in private industry conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Data indicates 1.7 million women were employed in the insurance industry—59.4 percent of the total 2.9 million insurance workers. In fact, women have comprised about 60 percent of the industry workforce each year since 2012. However, representation varies across occupations, such as sales agents (49.2 percent) and claims and policy clerks (84.7 percent).

 

Diversity in the workplace

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has information on diversity in the workplace by industry, including insurance. (See Insurance carriers and related activities under the Financial activities heading). Additionally, BLS has information on diversity by occupation, including insurance sales agents, claims adjusters, insurance claims and policy processing clerks, insurance underwriters and actuaries here.

 

Remote Workers 

Remote working continues to be prevalent as 56 percent of full-time U.S. employees, more than 70 million workers, said their job could be done working remotely from home, according to Gallup. Five in 10 are working a hybrid schedule (part of their week at home and part on-site), three in 10 are exclusively working remotely, and two in 10 are working entirely on site.

In an informal survey conducted by Triple-I in October 2022 of employees of its member companies, of which 164 responses were received, 41 percent of survey participants reported currently working an average of 5 days per week remotely. Additionally, a combined 68 percent of participants said they work remotely more than three days a week.

In 2021, 15 million Americans, or 9.7 percent of the U.S. workforce, said they worked from home, in contrast to 5.8 million in 2010, or 4.1 percent of the workforce, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. (See “COMMUTING TO WORK” section and sub-section “Worked from home.”)