A challenging recruitment environment is making headlines in insurance, but what if the underlying problem was not an issue with lack of talent but a neglection of employer brand?
There’s growing evidence that poor reputation and a lack of focus on employer brand are just as much to blame as AI adoption and a growing skills gap when it comes to finding and retaining talent.
TL;DR
- Recruitment is becoming more complicated in insurance as growing AI maturity requires new skills
- To succeed in attraction and retention, culture and reputation are more important than ever
- Insurance employees increasingly want to work for firms that share their values
Insurance employees make big decisions based on perceived reputation
New research is emerging that could change the debate and put culture and reputation at the heart of business success.
A survey commissioned by Midnight showed employees are willing to make big decisions based on perceived employer reputation. Really big.
- 30% of employees in the insurance sector have decided not to apply for a role because of perceived company reputation.
That’s worth thinking about for a moment. Almost a third have decided not to join an insurance firm because of how they felt about its reputation and culture.
Only manufacturing scored higher at 33% and the average across all sectors, for reference, was just 19%.
In addition:
- 19% have declined a job offer for the same reason.
- 21% have left a job for the same reason.
Take a deeper dive into our research here:
Why is it a major issue?
The answer to this question is not so complicated: it’s a problem because recruitment right now is tough.
In fact, talent attraction and retention were named as the top concerns for the UK insurance industry by Gallagher Basset’s claims insights report for 2026.
They rose from seventh in just one year with 72% of UK respondents reporting greater difficulty in finding qualified candidates.
So, could reputation hold the key to winning the recruitment race?
For firms in the insurance sector that get their reputation and culture right, the decisions are very different:
- 25% accepted a job offer based on reputation.
- 30% recommended an employer.
- 19% applied for a role.
How important is culture to you?
- 92% of insurance employees want their employer to share their values
That’s an overwhelming statistic and one that puts insurance joint top, alongside technology, across all sectors for that metric.
It proves, once and for all, that employees in insurance want to work for a firm that reflects their beliefs and values – placing integrity and honesty at the top of a list that also included:
- Respect for others
- Treating people equally
- Fairness
- Diversity
- Caring about the environment
How your firm demonstrates positive culture in these areas could be key to recruitment, especially in a competitive talent market.
We asked an expert for their thoughts on this. Dr Naeema Pasha, Author, Speaker & Founder of Henley Business School’s World of Work, explained:
“I think what we’re seeing here in general is a need for people to feel that their identity with work should feel like an extension of them. If an organisation or a job reflects who they are, that can drive attraction. They are thinking: ‘If I join this organisation, it’s a reflection of my identity, of my own skills and values. If the employer falls short of that, there’s a problem’.”
Culture cannot be a secret: everyone should talk about it
Culture and reputation are built in many ways and in many places.
It’s about far more than a fancy website, or blanket statements like ‘we value our people’.
Employees increasingly value the opinion of peers and go to platforms such as Glassdoor and LinkedIn to find information from people that have worked for the company.
‘How current employees talk about the company’ was comfortably the number one way to rate reputation in Midnight’s survey.
It means that culture cannot be surface only. It needs to resonate and be understood by everyone in the business.
It needs to be communicated externally, too, right from the top:
- 77% of insurance employees say the public profile of a CEO or MD would influence when they apply for a role or stay in a role at that company
That’s well above the national average of 61% and underlines the growing influence of leaders.
CEOs who want to hide or be invisible are going to find it tough to deliver the employer brand reputation they crave.
Employer reputations in insurance: what does good look like?
Insurance firms did not feature heavily in the recent Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2026 list, which is something for the sector to consider.
The star was McGill and Partners, an independent global specialty insurance and reinsurance broker.
It made the list for Big Organisations with an overall engagement score of 88 per cent and an employee response rate of 84 per cent.
In addition, it was awarded Overall Best Company for Wellbeing, recognising the firm’s distinctive culture and sustained investment in people.
CEO Kate Browne was quick to celebrate the recognition on LinkedIn by emphasising the firm’s ‘one culture, built on trust’ strapline. She said:
“It reflects the mutual trust we have worked hard to build together and the trust that wellbeing is taken seriously. That trust is something we never take for granted. Thank you to all our colleagues for trusting us with your careers and your wellbeing.”
Another example is NFU Mutual, ranked as the top large insurance firm on Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work 2026 list, scoring 4.4, with Royal London its closest rival. The key to its success was a hybrid work model, supportive management, great people ethos and a strong employee benefits offer.
What should your insurance firm be thinking about?
All the firms that ranked highly on both Glassdoor and the Sunday Times list had multiple commonalities:
- They worked hard to deliver a strong culture for their people
- Their own employees were willing to publicly praise them
- They all communicated their culture to the wider world.
It’s the combination of all those three aspects that delivers reputation and, ultimately, an advantage in the employment market.
The changes insurance firms need to make
Finding candidates with the right skills remains an ongoing issue in insurance as AI maturity grows. But there’s another side to the conundrum.
There’s strong evidence that firms in the insurance sector also have a clarity and credibility issue which is impacting attraction.
If employees want you to share their values, they need to know for certain what your values are and what they mean to your business and to your people.
Culture and purpose need to be explained and celebrated both inside and outside of the business.
It’s case of tell as well as show to win hearts and minds.
It involves a change in strategy:
- From messaging to providing evidence
- From statements to proving it through behaviour
- From talking about employer brand to showcasing lived experience
As our partner Mo Kanjilal from Edge of Difference explained:
“Does your business talk about adjustments and accessibility in the recruitment process? Do you talk about flexible working, maternity, paternity, employee benefits? Do you think about people who are interested in learning and development? Businesses need to be talking about things like this to attract new employees in the future of work – and right now.”
Make sure your employer reputation messaging is clear
We worked with five University of Sussex students on our research, each looking at employer reputations in a different sector each.
Max, a third-year undergraduate in banking and finance, was tasked with investigating the insurance sector. Here’s what he had to say:
“I was surprised by the lack of storytelling from businesses about their work culture. In some cases, it was difficult to even work out what they do as a business.
“I was looking at the About Us section and it didn’t really say a single thing other than ‘we’re a high performing team and we deliver this or that.’ But what do you make? What do you do? What is your service? It wasn’t clear – even on their own website.
“It was also reflected on socials where there was a massive lack of showing what they actually do. Not even a bio on many employee accounts.”
Wrap-up
An ever-increasing desire from employees to work for companies that share their values means insurance firms need to truly value employer brand reputation and demonstrate it in everything they do.
- If your story isn’t clear, people won’t wait to work it out
- If it isn’t believable (or visible) they won’t engage
- If they cannot find proof it’s real for current and former employees, they won’t join or stay
- If your leadership isn’t visible, or doesn’t reflect the culture, they won’t trust the brand
Find out if your employer brand is helping or hurting your hiring. Take the 2-minute scorecard here.
Or get in touch to see how we help insurance firms turn reputation into a growth advantage.
