By Rebecca Delaney

March 10 - (The Insurer) - Sustainable Insurer examines the need for the insurance industry to address challenges around development gaps, maternity policies, senior representation and the rollback of flexible working.

Ahead of this year’s International Women’s Day on March 8, Lloyd’s Market Association CEO Sheila Cameron and Hiscox London Market CEO Kate Markham highlighted the long distance yet to be travelled on the journey towards gender equality in (re)insurance in an interview with The Insurer TV.

Cameron and Markham are among the relatively small number of women to have attained senior roles within the industry.

Twelve years ago, the Female Insurance Group was established with the explicit remit of getting women more access to C-suite roles, a remit later expanded to enhancing opportunities for women at all levels of the industry.

FIG launched the Boardroom Ready programme in 2020, three years after the introduction of mandatory gender pay gap reporting in the UK for companies with 250 or more employees indicated a significant gap.

“Each year the same excuses would be rolled out: women aren't putting themselves forward for these roles, women don't have the skills to go for these senior roles, of course you get a gender pay gap because they're just not represented,” Alexandra Anderson, partner at law firm RPC, told Sustainable Insurer in her capacity as chair of the group.

The programme aims to help women understand what is required for a board role, such as knowing how to read a balance sheet, as well as soft skills such as overcoming imposter syndrome, growing confidence and presenting effectively.

Currently, FIG is focused on the “4Ds framework”: the double burden, double bind, everyday discrimination and sexism, and the development gap facing women in insurance and wider professional services.

The double bind refers to the “tightrope” that women in leadership positions must tread between being perceived as competent and likeable, but not overly ambitious or assertive.

Analysis by Russell Reynolds Associates last month of more than 20,000 news articles found that ambition is 73% more likely to be mentioned in discussions of women CEOs, but seldom for the right reasons.

Female CEOs are both 2.1 times more likely as men to be described as “too ambitious”, while also being 2.1 times more likely to be described as “lacking ambition”, the survey found.

At the same time, female CEOs (which represent 9.2% of large listed companies in the UK, Europe and the U.S.) are 3.56 times more likely to be described as lacking confidence compared to men, while men were twice as likely to be described as “innovators”.

The double burden refers to traditional domestic labour performed by women, such as housework and childcare, alongside their professional jobs, although Anderson explains that this can also be applied to the workplace.

“The double burden also applies even when you have no caring responsibilities at all. It generally seems to be that when someone's asked to do an administrative task – and this is true across all organizations – it goes to women,” she said.

“Women are maybe less good at asking whether the task they’re being asked to do is something that's actually beneficial to them and their work. I think we generally want to be pleasers. That's how we're brought up, we're supposed to be the nurturers, the pleasers, the helpers.”

This highlights the importance of teaching management to be aware of these skewed dynamics, which can also help to combat the development gap.

“There is a growing rank of women in insurance who are up at the mid-level who are choosing to jump into management,” said Anderson.

“It seems to be a bit higher before you get to that glass ceiling in insurance. There are an increasing number of women who aren't getting to those senior roles. It takes time; the question is, how long?”

The FTSE Women Leaders Review last month found that women make up 43.3% of boards of directors at UK FTSE 350 companies, up slightly from 40.2% last year and exceeding the 40% target for publicly-listed companies.

However, this masks deeper issues around the stagnation of women in executive roles, as the number of female CEOs in FTSE 350 companies fell for the second consecutive year, from 21 in 2022 to 20 in 2023, and now to 19 in 2024.

The ElevateHER event hosted by Lloyd’s to mark International Women’s Day focused on how childbearing still forms a significant barrier for the career progression of biological women, particularly given the rollback of flexible working.

“This is not a case of a little nice to have, like a ping pong table in reception. This is a fundamental change to the fabric of our working world,” said Anna Whitehouse, guest keynote speaker at the Lloyd’s event.

“Everybody is pushing their employees back to the office four or five days a week. We are going backwards. We need to see this as a people issue, not a mother issue. This is for men who need and want to parent. They're not babysitting their own children.

“Change happens with you. It's men stepping up and not feeling emasculated for asking to look after their children. It's a woman going off for maternity leave and not having her boss whisper behind the scenes to her maternity cover that she's probably not coming back,” said Whitehouse.

The importance of allyship was highlighted during the ElevateHER panel by Michelle Edwards, head of employees relations at WTW and co-chair of the Multicultural Inclusion Network.

“Allyship is the cornerstone of inclusion. It may sound cliché, but everyone can be an ally. An ally is a person or organisation that actively supports the rights of a minority or marginalised group without being a member of it. The last part is really important, because an ally is a selfless act. It's about what you can do to support those who support others,” said Edwards.

“The role of leadership is key in inclusion because leadership sets the tone for the organisation. There are sponsors, champions, advocates, and it's important that they empower their managers to do exactly the same.”