AI is rewriting insurance hiring as openings drop to a 10-year low
Insurers are planning for growth, but they're no longer hiring the way they used to. A Q1 2026 Insurance Labor Market Study from The Jacobson Group and Aon's Strategy and Technology Group shows a split: roughly half of carriers expect to increase headcount in the next 12 months, yet finance and insurance job openings have fallen to the lowest monthly level in a decade.
Between 2022 and the end of 2025, the average monthly number of finance-related openings dropped sharply. The annual average sat at 281, but by December it was about 138 - the lowest monthly level in 10 years for finance roles spanning banking and wealth. As Aon partner Jeff Rieder put it, revenue expectations remain strong while hiring plans lag, and AI is a major reason why.
Automation is now the top reason for staff cuts
Only 7% of insurers plan to reduce staff over the next year (down from 12% last year). For those cutting, automation and process improvements lead the list of reasons, ahead of reorganization and overstaffing.
This shift follows more than a decade of core system investment. From 2010 to 2023, carriers upgraded policy, billing, and claims platforms. With implementations largely done, productivity gains are compounding - and leaders are testing how far those platforms, plus a fast-moving generation of AI tools, can stretch existing teams before adding headcount.
Where AI is most likely to displace roles
According to Jeff Blair of The Jacobson Group, accounting roles tied to financial reporting, data synthesis, and aggregation face direct pressure from AI. The same goes for call centers, data entry, and transactional operations. These are shared pain points across insurers, banks, and wealth managers, which means fewer entry-level roles built around manual processing and tougher competition for the specialized jobs that remain.
Where demand is holding - and getting more specific
- Technology, claims, and underwriting are the most likely functions to add staff in the next year.
- Senior and complex underwriting in P&C and E&S continues to be a hotspot. Depth beats breadth.
- The "hard-to-fill" list is steady: actuarial, executive, and analytics roles top it for the fifth straight survey.
Turnover and workplace setup are settling
- Voluntary turnover: 5.4% over six months vs. 8.1% over 12 months.
- Involuntary turnover: 3.5% over six months vs. 4.4% over 12 months.
- Work location: 71% expect mostly hybrid over the next six months; 3% plan to tighten in-office requirements.
- Daily in-office requirements have edged up to 7% (from 3% in January 2025).
The emerging insurance hiring playbook
For carriers and brokers
- Prioritize work redesign before backfilling. Map high-volume, rules-based tasks (accounting close, bordereaux cleanup, FNOL intake, subrogation triage) to automation and AI co-pilots. Repost only what can't be automated or streamlined.
- Double down on underwriting specialization. Build pods around complex P&C and E&S niches (cat property, excess casualty, cyber, environmental) with clear decision rights and model oversight responsibilities.
- Blend tech with line expertise. Pair seasoned underwriters and claims leaders with data scientists and engineers to productionize models and LLM workflows that actually move loss ratio and expense ratio, not just dashboards.
- Create "AI supervisor" roles. Formalize human-in-the-loop review for financial reporting, exposure aggregation, and claim adjudication where model outputs carry financial or compliance risk.
- Re-skill ops and finance. Upskill high-performers in SQL/Python, prompt design for documentation/QA, and process mining. Offer pathways from contact centers into claims support, SIU intake, or QA.
- Rebalance early-career pipelines. Shift entry programs away from pure manual processing toward analyst rotations, underwriting assistants in specialty lines, and loss control apprenticeships.
- Pay for scarcity. Actuarial, executive, and analytics talent remain tight. Use market data, retention grants on critical paths, and faster hiring cycles to win scarce candidates.
- Lock hybrid as a feature. Keep two to three anchor days for collaboration, but recruit nationally for niche skills. Use travel budgets to build team cohesion instead of mandating five days in-office.
For insurance professionals
- Underwriters: Specialize. Build credibility in a defined niche, understand broker flow, coverage nuances, and the model's blind spots. Learn to audit rating and pricing outputs with your own reference frameworks.
- Claims pros: Develop strengths in injury severity evaluation, fraud cues, recovery, and negotiation. Layer in tools for summarization, document search, and subrogation identification.
- Finance and back office: Move up the value chain. Focus on controls, scenario analysis, reconciliations that require judgment, and model governance. Automate your own reporting pack before someone else does.
- Analytics and tech: Tie work to combined ratio. Prioritize projects that reduce leakage, improve hit/close rates in target segments, or cut cycle time in subrogation and SIU referrals.
What to watch
- Hiring intent vs. openings. Leadership expects revenue growth, but headcount growth is muted. Track monthly openings to see if productivity gains keep absorbing demand.
- AI-assisted reporting and controls. As LLMs improve document parsing and variance explanations, expect fewer junior accounting roles and more roles in oversight and exceptions management.
- E&S momentum. Continued growth will keep senior specialty underwriters in short supply.
Sources and further reading
Practical next step
If you're planning near-term hiring or redeployments, benchmark roles against where AI is already producing lift in underwriting, claims, and back-office workflows. For hands-on tactics and training, see AI for Insurance.
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