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Garrison Organization Candidate Survey Results--Demographics

We have gotten our website updated and on-line and finally, we can publish the results of our fourth quarter survey. Today, I want to let you know who responded to our survey.

The respondents were pretty evenly mixed in their areas of expertise. These included areas such as P&C claim professionals, P&C underwriters, Life & Health sales and marketing professionals, and home office operations management professionals.

The level of experience was disproportionately weighted to those who have 15 years of experience or more (64% of the respondents).

Ironically, despite the number of respondents with a lot of experience, the compensation levels were surprising in that they were somewhat evenly dispersed from about $50,000 to over $200,000. Fourteen percent represented the largest group of respondents and they earn between $70,001-$80,000. The next two largest groups both represented 11.5% of the respondents. One group earns $50,001 to $60,000. The other group earns $100,001 to $125,000.

To make more sense of this, I have broken it up a bit more.
• 30% of the respondents earned $70,000 or less.
• 30% of the respondents earn between $70,001 and $100,000
• 40% of the respondents earn over $100,000

As far as geography is concerned 28% of the respondents were from Iowa. The other 72% were from 22 other states and mostly concentrated in the Midwest from Ohio to Colorado. However, there were respondents from some disproportionately higher paying areas such as New York and California.

In the next blog posting, I will share the results regarding job satisfaction and motivation.

Dennis Trollope:

I have read your survey and am quite confused when confronted with the extremely high salaries posted. After spending a few decades in the business here in Des Moines I have experienced no salaries that even come close to those listed in the survey.

Question: How does one acquire these plum type positions?

Jeff Garrison:

Thanks for your question Dennis. When I first began recruiting I was really surprised at the disparity in salaries from person to person who were doing the same job. There are two major factors that I have found which contribute to the disparity.

First, the size of the company matters to a certain extent. Very small companies do lag behind. Larger regionals and national companies are more competitive with each other.

Second, those who stay at the same company for very long periods of time often make significantly less than their peers who have changed companies a few times. I have encountered many people with 20 years at one company making thousands less than their peers at another who have only half the experience but have been with more than one company.

That being said, money alone is a poor reason for changing companies. If someone is in a functional unit with a good boss and finds joy in the role that they are doing, they should probably stay. On the other hand, a dysfuntional unit or a poor boss or a lack of inspiration for your role are all good reasons to explore other opportunites.

To more directly respond to your question, I naturally believe that the best thing a person can do for their career is to work with a recruiter who understands how to effectively position them in the market to get exposure to better roles. In other words, someone who specializes in Bridging Insurance Talent with Opportunity.

Jeff Garrison:

To better respond to Dennis above, I made a few phone calls to see what some of my clients would pay a claims adjuster who was right out of college and had no experience. Three clients here in Iowa were all in the range of $35,000 to $38,000. You can see that in todays environment, after three years of 5% raises and then moving to another company for a $5,000 increase puts a three or four year adjuster at nearly $50,000. This assumes that they don't get any promotions to higher pay grades or bands along the way. Commercial underwriters can move even faster. What a great business in which to be!

Debikf:

Userful blog. Thanks!