Agent and broker employment up 3.1% over last 12 months

U.S. Dept. of Labor statistics show an upward employment trend for almost all segments of the insurance industry. (Photo: Shutterstock/alexmillos)

In good news for the insurance industry, the latest U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data for June 2015 shows that, on a year-over-year basis, virtually every subsector of insurance industry employment was up, with many subsectors rising solidly.

Property and casualty (P&C) carrier employment rose by 3,400 (+0.6%) in June 2015 vs. May 2015, said Dr. Robert P. Hartwig, CPCU, president of the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.). The direction of June-over-May employment change for the P&C industry is often up (since 1990, P&C carrier employment has risen 17 times and fallen nine times) but this is the largest month-over-month rise since March 1998. For the 12 months ending in June 2015, P&C carrier employment rose by 6,500, or 1.2% to 527,900. According to Hartwig, P&C carrier employment has generally been rising for the last 18 months and is now back to where it was in the late summer of 2012.