In the race to attract young, diverse talent, the insurance industry has a branding problem – one that starts with its very name.
“For a student who's deciding what they want to do with the rest of their lives, if they have the option between the insurance industry and the tech industry, we've already lost them, right?” said Tandeka Nomvete (pictured), director of external engagement at the Spencer Educational Foundation. That comparison, she added, is not theoretical – it’s a recurring truth in her conversations with first-generation and minority students, the very demographic wholesale carriers and brokers need to future-proof the workforce.
To shift perception, Nomvete doesn’t just say “insurance.” She refers to it as the “risk management and insurance” industry. “At the very least, they will be intrigued by the risk management aspect, and they'll start to ask questions,” she said.
Those questions rarely arise on their own. Many students only know insurance through advertising mascots like Jake from State Farm or the Geico Gecko. “That’s not a pipeline. That’s a dead end,” Nomvete said.
It’s an irony that frustrates her. “Our industry is just as innovative and future-focused as any other. And in fact, every other industry relies on us to function,” she said. The challenge isn’t opportunity – it’s storytelling.
Nomvete believes the solution lies in immersive engagement – not just career days or campus visits, but real-world experience. Through Spencer’s Student Risk Management Challenge, students from 61 universities in 16 countries compete to pitch solutions at the RIMS RiskWorld Conference.
“This past cycle, we had 244 students participate. Once teams reach the top eight, we fly them out to the conference – flights, hotels, everything,” she said. “For many, it was their first time outside their home countries.”
Wholesale markets, which depend on analytical thinking, technical acumen, and broad business literacy, benefit directly from this kind of early exposure. “This led to a very deeply moving experience for the students, both personal and professional,” she said.
Nomvete’s long-term vision is to see risk management taught across American universities. “Every student should take at least one risk management course as part of their general curriculum,” she said. Spencer is already helping colleges in the US and Canada build these programs from the ground up.
But course creation is just the starting point. “We need to be actively engaged – hosting panels, showing up at career fairs, offering internships, bringing students into the room,” she said. These efforts help normalize insurance careers, making them as visible and viable as roles in tech or finance.
To break through the “boring” label, Spencer partners with insurtech players to get students into spaces where insurance and technology intersect. “It’s often at those insurtech conferences that the light bulb goes off,” Nomvete said. “That’s when they say, ‘Wow, insurance is cool.’”
For the wholesale segment – where tools like AI, telematics, and parametric models are becoming foundational – this cross-pollination is essential.
Still, structural barriers remain. “Most of the university risk management programs are at predominantly white institutions,” she said. That reality continues to limit the talent pool entering wholesale and specialty lines.
Nomvete points to a simple truth: many insurance professionals are in the field because a family member showed them the way. “That exposure plants a seed,” she said. For others, Spencer’s work must fill that role.
“We can’t continue to do the exact same competitions and mentorship models we’ve used for 30 years,” she said. “They need to be revamped in order to be relevant to today’s world.”
The wholesale insurance sector doesn’t have a talent problem – it has a visibility problem. Fixing that is less about rebranding and more about leadership. “We all need to be better storytellers,” Nomvete said. “Because once students understand what this industry really is, they want to be part of it.”
