NU Online News Service, Dec. 7, 10:40 a.m.EST

Property and casualty carriers shed 900 jobs in October comparedto September, continuing a trend seen since July 2008, but theinsurance industry overall added 4,900 positions in October.

For P&C carriers, employment is down 8.3 percent from July2008 to October 2011, according to an Insurance InformationInstitute analysis of the latest U.S. Labor Department's Bureau ofLabor Statistics (BLS) data. I.I.I. president Robert Hartwig saysP&C carriers have lost 41,200 jobs over that time, withemployment now standing at 452,000 positions.

Agents and brokers, both life and non-life, added 3,100 jobs inOctober compared to September, but Hartwig notes that “this merelyreverses the nearly equivalent drop in September,” when agents andbrokers shed 3,400 compared to August. Agent and broker employmentcurrently stands at 641,400.

Hartwig notes that October has typically been a month for hiringagents and brokers. He says that “in the 22 years since BLS begancollecting data, employment in agencies and brokerages increased inall but four Octobers. Moreover, three of the four 'down' Octoberswere in recession years, when we might expect employment toshrink.” Those three years were 1991, 2008 and 2009.

Elsewhere in the industry, reinsurers neither added norsubtracted jobs in October. Employment in this sector stands at27,500.

Claims adjusters added 900 jobs from September to October,increasing overall employment to 48,600.

Health/medical insurers added 1,600 jobs, bringing totalemployment to 419,000. Hartwig says this sector has seen job lossessimilar to P&C carriers since July 2008, shedding 22,500positions during that time.

Hartwig says, “These two industry segments [P&C andhealth/medical] are more transaction-oriented than is thelife/annuity segment, which is more asset-management oriented. Thismight account for why, in contrast, in that same time frame [July2008-October 2011], employment at life/annuity carriers grew by17,100.”

Life-insurance carriers added 1,400 positions in Octobercompared to September, increasing employment in the sector to374,900.

Title and other direct insurers lost 1,000 jobs in October,dropping employment to 64,100.

Third-party administrators shed 300 jobs, with employmentstanding at 127,900.

For the industry overall, employment rose to 2,208,900 inOctober, up from 2,204,000 in September.

Meanwhile, addressing attendees today at a conference sponsoredby Advisen and the St. John's University School of Risk Managementin New York on “The State of the P&C Job Market” Mario Vitale,co-chief executive officer of Aspen Insurance, says the industry isgoing back to what it once was, where underwriting discipline wasthe primary concern, and away from “cash flow” underwriting that hedescribed as “get the cash in and invest it.”

In terms of jobs, he says this means the industry needs to trainpeople in a way “it has not done in 25 years” and educate them inthe art and concepts of underwriting.

That, he adds, is “all about hiring the right people and gettingback to doing the basics in this business.”

He notes too that the industry is not limited to underwriters,but as the economy pick up and profitability grows again, companieswill need a diverse field of talent including fieldrepresentatives, adjusters and loss-control specialists.Talents will also have to cover information technology,legal issues, marketing and human resources.

As the international aspect of insurance grows, it will becomeincreasingly important for insurance professionals to know a secondlanguage, in fact, some companies will not hire unless individualshave that skill.

“I do believe this is a war for talent,” Vitale says.

He says this is a multi-faceted business and job seekers need“to find what is most passionate to you. Give it all you have andI'm sure you'll be successful.”