Luke Brannigan recently joined Crawford as People Development Director for the major and complex team, to help sharpen our focus on developing our own colleagues and to grow our pipeline of next-generation loss adjusters. Luke has more than 20 years’ insurance industry experience and is passionate about people development in the loss adjusting space, helping colleagues to bring their careers to life and attracting new talent to the profession
Luke says, “despite the UK insurance industry’s significant contribution to the economy, it’s still perceived to be a poor environment for career growth, and that’s an area we need to be looking at if we want to be attracting new talent.”
The core issue is that many senior and highly experienced loss adjusters are leaving the profession as they reach retirement. In addition, the next generation of talent is seeking careers with companies that are led by a clear sense of purpose, will help make a real difference to real people and offer acceptable work/life balance. The key is to bridge the gap.
While Luke feels it’s well worth investing in external candidates for a few highly specialised roles, he sees his real mission as developing expertise from within.
Beyond occasional, highly selective external recruitment, Luke believes the mid- to long-term answer is to shift focus to existing internal resource and to think differently about recruiting fresh talent externally.
“We’ll provide support and training for internal colleagues – including those currently in entry-level roles – who want to develop and aim for loss adjusting in general, but major and complex loss is a growth area in particular for us.”
As for external recruitment, Luke believes that a career in loss adjusting is the best kept secret in the insurance sector –and can genuinely make a difference to people’s lives. “There’s still a misconception that loss adjusters pay the least we can get away on claims. The truth is that they are our client’s first point of contact with customers in those moments when lives have been seriously disrupted and when what’s needed most is a calm, experienced head offering real added value, help, guidance and advice for customers and clients alike.”
Luke sees this as the key to attracting new talent, especially amongst graduates. “For somebody looking for a career where they can make a positive impact on the lives of others while acquiring very real technical skills, it doesn’t get much better than this.”
Luke is already engaged in a mix of new and existing initiatives to further develop careers at graduate level, as well as working to develop outreach programs to get this highly attractive and rewarding career path onto as many candidate wish lists as possible.
Luke says, “in 1941, Churchill famously invited the USA to ‘give us the tools and we will finish the job’. Well, in 2023 and beyond we’re not only offering candidates the tools, but Crawford will also deliver all the training and mentoring needed to have a fantastic career as a loss adjuster.”
This blog first appeared in Modern Insurance Magazine.
