The specialty insurance industry isn’t just losing workers to retirement. It’s losing expertise.
- 361,000 professionals could retire within a decade and only 236,000 are positioned to replace them. Many departing workers are taking decades of experience with them, increasing the urgency to capture and pass along that knowledge to the next generation.
- Expertise takes decades to build and cannot easily be automated. Technology can automate routine tasks, but judgment and instinct develop only through practice. As Stephen Perella, Chief Claims Officer at Argo, explains, “This business is highly instinctual, and it leans heavily on expertise. You can only develop that over time.”
- Mentorship transfers expertise in ways technology cannot. Passing along knowledge is getting harder as veteran professionals retire, especially with remote work reducing day-to-day learning. David Corry, Head of Casualty at Argo, spent months going through a general liability policy line by line with newer team members. “Could I have sent them a link and said, ‘Here, do it on your own and let AI read this to you?’ Yeah, I guess I could have. But this was interactive. You’re learning. You’re talking together. And that’s irreplaceable.”
As veteran professionals retire, passing along their expertise becomes just as important as attracting new talent.
The talent gap is just one of the challenges highlighted in the 2026 Industry Pulse Report. Explore the full report to learn how AI, market competition and other industry changes are influencing specialty insurance today.
