Achieving Gender Parity

Tackling the Gender Seniority Gap

In September 2018, we published 'Tackling the Gender Seniority Gap: What works for the insurance and long-term savings industry’. The report addresses two questions: what practical steps will help get more women into senior roles and what interventions make the biggest difference? The dominant reason for the gender seniority gap is the ‘motherhood penalty.’ Women are more likely to take on the bulk of the childcare responsibilities and to work part-time, but once you work reduced hours it is harder to progress. To reduce the seniority gap, the industry needs to make it easier for part-time or formerly part-time employees to advance.

Following recommendations from the report, the ABI is now developing a pioneering Job Share Project, one of the aims of which is to increase the number of women in senior roles.

Women in Finance Charter  

The Women in Finance Charter is a Government initiative which commits firms to setting, measuring and reporting against targets to improve the number of women in senior roles. We were the first trade association to sign the Charter in 2016, and 46 of our members are Charter signatories.

We originally set a 3-year target to achieve 45% female representation within our senior management population by 30 June 2019. At that time, we had a fairly broad definition of senior management so that it included our Executive Team and 2 levels below this within the structure. We believed this target provided a good level of stretch from our starting point in 2016 of 36.96% and demonstrated our firm commitment to attract, develop and promote female talent. The ABI was proud to have achieved our 45% target by the first reporting period in September 2017 and broadly maintained this over the next 2 years (48.57% in 2018, 44.45% in 2019).

Now the ABI’s target has expired, we have taken the opportunity to review and refocus this. We have decided to redefine our internal definition of senior management so that this now includes our Executive Team and 1 level below this within our structure. We believe this is a more ambitious and stretching target for us, in particular due to the smaller number of colleagues which fall within the new definition. We have also increased the target itself.

We are therefore pleased to confirm that the ABI’s new WIFC targets are as follows:

Overall target:

Achieve a 50%/50% female to male split across the senior management population of the ABI by 31 December 2022

Supporting targets:

1. Aim to maintain an over 50% rate of internal promotion into senior management positions.
2. Request a 50%/50% gender diversity split in long lists provided by recruitment agencies during senior management recruitment processes.
3. At least 50% of ABI colleagues to return from maternity leave / shared parental leave, and flexible working requests will be considered in line with best practice.
4. Equal opportunities for training and development are provided to both male and female colleagues, including mentoring.

We are pleased to confirm that when using the new definition of senior management, the ABI’s data as at September 2020 is female representation of 47.36%. Over the past year we have continued to develop our working practices in relation to inclusion, and to nurture our internal talent pipeline and are pleased to confirm one female colleague has recently been promoted into the a senior leadership position.

We are delighted to have made such strong progress since we signed up to the charter in 2016 in relation to gender balanced representation. However, there is always more we can do in relation to this strand of diversity, and also to work to becoming a more inclusive employer overall. We are committed to working towards this both within our organisation and with the insurance sector more broadly.

Future Leaders

Future Leaders, the ABI’s award-winning executive development programme ensures a pipeline of diverse talent in the insurance and long-term savings industry. We are committed to having a programme that represents the customers and society we serve, and in 2019 we had more women than men on the programme. Visit our dedicated Future Leaders section to find out more.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Women & Work

The ABI is a sponsor of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Women & Work. The APPG provides a forum to constructively examine and debate the role that policymakers can play to deliver gender balance within the economy. We helped shape its 2019 report, Inclusivity and Intersectionality Toolkit, which includes reference to our Transparent Parental Leave Initiative.