Succession planning in insurance is quietly failing at most brokers. Find out why the pipeline problem starts years before a vacancy, and what firms handling it well do differently.
Every industry has a slow-moving crisis it can see coming but struggles to act on. In UK insurance, succession planning is it.
Around 25% of the insurance sector workforce is expected to retire within the next decade, with 1 in 4 already over 50 and at the same time, some studies suggest as few as 4% of young people consider a career in insurance to be appealing. The exits are coming. The replacements are not.
Most succession plans in insurance brokers are not really plans at all. They are not even a list of names written in a notebook, updated when someone leaves. Most leaders are so focused on the present that they fail to plan for the future.
That might sound harsh. But if you have ever watched a senior underwriter, compliance lead, or client-facing manager walk out of the door and felt the lurch that follows, you know it is closer to the truth than most firms want to admit.
Succession planning is one of those things the industry nods to in principle and neglects in practice. The reasons are predictable: there is always a more urgent priority, the people you would promote do not feel ready, and frankly, it is uncomfortable to plan for people leaving when you would rather focus on keeping them.
But the cost of getting it wrong keeps rising. Estimates suggest replacing a specialist or senior employee in the UK can cost anywhere from £40,000 to £100,000 per head once you account for recruitment, lost productivity, and the time it takes a replacement to get up to speed. Experienced people are retiring, competition for talent is fierce, and the FCA's focus on governance and individual accountability means leadership capability gaps are not just an HR problem anymore.
This is not a hiring problem alone. It is a development problem. Most succession gaps are not created when someone resigns. They are created years earlier, when no one invested in the people who could have been ready.
The industry does have capable people. But research by Aviva found that out of 1,000 students surveyed, only 1 in 7 were interested in pursuing a career in insurance, compared to 1 in 3 who wanted to work in tech. The pipeline coming in is thin, which makes developing the talent already in your firm not just good practice, but essential.
There are two failure modes that come up time and again. The first is the technical expert promoted beyond their competence: the outstanding account handler who becomes a team manager overnight, with no preparation for what managing actually involves. The second is the long-serving employee assumed to be ready because they have been there longest, when readiness for leadership has very little to do with tenure.
Both are easily avoidable. Neither requires a significant budget. What they require is a decision to think forwards and to take leadership development seriously before the clock is running out.
It is worth naming this directly, because it changes the stakes.
Under SMCR and the FCA's broader governance expectations, leadership competence is increasingly a regulatory matter. Who is accountable for which decisions? Do they have the skills to exercise that accountability properly? Can you evidence that you have invested in their development? In practical terms, firms are increasingly expected to demonstrate not just who is accountable, but that those individuals are competent and appropriately developed.
A firm that cannot answer those questions clearly is not just underprepared for a departure. It is carrying a governance risk it may not have fully recognised.
The capability gap in most firms is not dramatic. It is quiet. A manager who avoids difficult conversations because no one ever taught them how to have one. A team leader who motivates through familiarity rather than genuine leadership skill. A high-potential individual who stalls because the path from technical expert to leader was never made explicit.
None of these are failures of character. They are failures of investment. And they compound over time, in team performance, in retention, and in the confidence of the people who are supposed to be leading.
The market does not only need people with technical skills, we need people with soft skills too. Insurance is, and always will be, first and foremost a people business.
The firms that handle succession well share a common approach. They identify the people who could lead before they need them to, and they invest in building the specific skills, including emotional intelligence, performance management, ethical judgement, and conflict resolution, that distinguish a capable manager from a capable technician. That investment does not have to be intensive. Structured learning, mentoring relationships, and deliberate exposure to leadership challenges all contribute. What matters is that it is intentional.
The best time to start a succession planning conversation is when nothing is broken. When the person you would eventually want to promote still has time to develop. When the gap between where they are and where they need to be is a matter of structured development, not emergency intervention.
The firms that do this well treat leadership development not as a one-off event, but as an ongoing part of how they run the business. Something built into their CPD approach, not bolted on when a vacancy appears.
John Nutter, Zing365's Director of Training and Development, has more than 20 years experience working with the insurance industry's leadership and management communities. He says:
"Leadership development is one of my passions. I have seen firsthand the positive difference good leaders can make to organisations. But also how people in leadership positions, who have not had the training and support, can act to stifle an organisation's development. I love working with leaders who are on that journey and seeing the light-bulb moments when things click into place. It is such a rewarding part of my role."
Leaders who have been properly developed bring the emotional and operational skills their teams need. Leaders who have not been developed, however technically strong, often struggle in ways that quietly cost the business far more than the training would have. For firms looking to take a more structured approach, external support can play a role
If you are thinking about your leadership pipeline, Zing365 has a number of management and leadership programmes covering the core skills needed, from emotional intelligence and performance management to mentoring and conflict resolution, as part of a Zing Total CPD subscription.
For firms that want something built around their specific structure and culture, Zing Live Bespoke offers a tailored programme designed and delivered by our training team.
Read how Crawford and Company developed their leadership capability with Zing.
Sources: CII Talent Shortage Crisis Report, April 2024 / Aviva Graduate Research, 2022 / PayFit/Cendex replacement cost data
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Zing365 has been a leading provider of training & development services to the UK insurance market since 2000 and is based in Bristol, England.
