Women in Insurance Collective Rebrands to Close Leadership Gap

The Women in Insurance Initiative has officially rebranded as the Women in Insurance Collective (WIIC), adopting a non-profit structure and introducing a leadership team composed of senior insurance executives. The move reflects the organization’s commitment to advancing leadership opportunities, fostering inclusion, and strengthening talent development across the insurance industry.

Margaret Resce Milkint, DSG Global’s Global Insurance Practice Leader, will lead WIIC alongside Laura Deutscher, insurance industry leader and board director Tanya Krochta, Executive Vice President, COO and Acting CEO at ACORD, and Beth Jarecki, CEO of Omnia Paratus. Working alongside volunteers from across the insurance ecosystem, and the group is hoping to build a more inclusive insurance industry where people can actually thrive, regardless of role or seniority.

Key Highlights

• Women comprise 60% workforce but only 33.5% executives
• New non-profit collective aims to advance insurance leadership diversity
• Industry faces talent shortage as workforce retirements accelerate

WIIC plans to move its mission forward through outreach efforts, industry committees community- focused events, and partnerships with organizations that carry a similar vision. The collective’s leadership believes that stronger pathways toward leadership and professional progress are going to matter a lot for the industry’s long term sustainability.

As diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs are under greater scrutiny throughout corporate America, the rebranding move comes as a welcome one. Executive search firm Cowen Partners reports that “the number of requests for executive candidates from diverse backgrounds has fallen dramatically in the last year”, among other changes in organizational priorities.

Data continues to highlight the leadership gap WIIC seeks to address. Since 2012, women have made up almost 60% of the U.S. insurance workforce but only 33.5% of the executive positions and about 40% of the board seats. Moreover, almost 90% of the CEOs of the top U.S. insurance companies are white male. Liberty Mutual also found women represent only 26% of agency owners and principals, highlighting the lack of gender representation in leadership.

The launch of WIIC is also timely as the insurance industry is grappling with a problem of talent shortage. Industry experts project a total of about 400,000 professionals will leave the industry by 2026. In the next 15 years, almost half of today's work force will retire, which will bring with it both hiring and succession planning problems. Meanwhile, just 4% of millennials indicated an interest in going into insurance.

McKinsey's research has also revealed “the business benefits of diverse leadership teams, showing that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are more inclined to be more profitable and value creating than their counterparts”.

WIIC emphasized that this mission is to create an industry that offers opportunities for every insurance professional to succeed and grow in an inclusive business environment.

As a non-profit organization, WIIC's goals are to build a long-term business institution for leadership development, for community involvement, and to broaden the opportunities for women's insurance leadership.