The insurance industry is struggling to find enough skilled workers to maintain efficient operations – a situation that is likely to worsen in the coming years. Technology can help carriers navigate insurance talent shortages by reducing workloads and improving employee experiences.   

Understanding the Insurance Industry’s Talent Shortage 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, all baby boomers will be age 65 or above by 2030. A substantial number of these individuals work in insurance. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 181,000 insurance workers are aged 65 or above and 503,000 are between the ages of 55 and 64. 

As these workers retire, insurers need to hire workers to replace them, which is proving difficult. Finding young workers who are interested in insurance is often a challenge. Retaining them may also be difficult, since young workers don’t tend to value job loyalty. In a survey from ResumeLab, 83% of Gen Z workers said they are job hoppers. Even if insurers succeed in meeting their recruitment and retention goals, they still face an uphill battle trying to bring new employees up to the same skill level as the older employees they’re replacing. Those older workers have decades of experience.  

The 2025 Claims Insights report from Gallagher Bassett shows that talent shortages are hitting the health insurance sector particularly hard. As many as 72% of global carriers and 66% of North American carriers say labor shortages are already having a moderate to significant impact on their capability to grow and manage claims effectively. 

Technology Can Help 

The skilled labor situation looks bleak, but technology can be a bright light at the end of the tunnel.  

Many insurance companies still rely on old, disconnected systems that require substantial manual data entry. This turns even small changes into time-consuming tasks with numerous opportunities for human error.  

By replacing these systems with more technologically-advanced solutions, insurance carriers will gain many benefits that will help them navigate the labor shortages – but we’re not talking about replacing human workers with machines. While it’s true that insurance carriers may be able to reduce their total workforce somewhat by leveraging technology, they will still need human workers. The role of technology will be to help those human workers accomplish more.  

There are three critical ways to do this.

Reduce Manual Processes to Allow Workers to Focus on High-Value Tasks

Being busy and being productive are not the same. When workers are burdened with tedious administrative tasks, they have little time or energy to focus on the higher-level decision-making that would be a better use of their attention.  

With outdated insurance systems, workers may spend hours every week engaged in manual and redundant processes, such as entering the same data into different spreadsheets. They then have to take additional manual steps for quality reviews that may not catch all the errors. The situation is compounded when workers have to switch back and forth between unintegrated systems – a common problem with many old systems.  

Automating this work means workers have much more time to dedicate to problem-solving, innovation, customer service, and other growth-generating activities.

Avoid Burnout to Boost Productivity and Retention

Tedious manual processes aren’t just a poor use of a worker’s time – they are also physically and emotionally draining. 

Burnout is a serious problem that may result in reduced productivity, high stress levels, and increased worker turnover. A report from 2025 Robert Half found that 33% of workers are more burned out now than they were a year ago, with heavy workloads and long hours being the primary reason.  

Worker shortages tend to exacerbate burnout-related problems because workers have to take on heavier workloads to make up for the lack of support. The result is a downward spiral as burnout causes even more workers to quit, leading to even more burnout. Technology helps to break this cycle by reducing workloads and working smarter.

Attract Younger Workers

Gen Zers and millennials have grown up with technology. If your company is using outdated systems, you may have trouble attracting these workers.  

Put yourself in the shoes of a job seeker who has received similar job offers from two different companies. The employees at one company describe rewarding work that lets them use their creativity and people skills to solve problems with the support of up-to-date technology. The employees at the other company hint at an old system that doesn’t make their work any easier. Job seekers want to develop their technical skills with best-in-class tools and will steer clear of companies that rely on outdated systems.  

The Skilled Labor Shortage Will Become Worse Before It Gets Better 

As the last of the baby boomers retire from the workforce, the insurance industry’s skilled labor shortages will likely become worse. The sooner you adopt new technologies, the easier it will be to get ahead of this problem. 

FJA can help. Our configurable solutions streamline operations while enabling you to integrate new technologies as they emerge. Learn more. 

insurance talent shortage