Those looking for employment in insurance technology should see improved hiring.
According to the 2012 Information Week U.S. IT Salary Survey, as the global and American economy continues its stunted upward growth, the outlook for staffing and salary in the area of insurance technology is looking quite healthy.
In 2011, the recovery of the economy put a number of new insurance jobs out there.
Insurers increased their tech budgets and brought their bigger projects forward from the back burner, where they had been left since the financial industry took its nosedive. These companies have also started hiring full time personnel for their IT departments, in order to make sure that they operate with better efficiency and that they improve their competitiveness.
Now, in 2012, it appears that this same momentum will be continuing for insurance technology employment.
This recovery for staffing in the tech departments has been welcome by both the companies and those who are being hired. The recovery has – and is continuing – to look very positive in that sphere. That said, while the levels do seem to be continuing from those seen last year, they do not seem to be improving significantly.
The survey revealed that there is also an upward trending for compensation among insurance technology staff, but that the management in those departments are seeing declines in their pay. For managers, the average compensation (including bonuses and other direct forms of payment) fell from $132,000 in 2010, to $129,000 last year. On the other hand, the average compensation for staff rose from $93,000 in 2010 to $96,000 in 2011.
That said, the trend in pay doesn’t seem to have done any harm to satisfaction with insurance jobs. Sixty six percent of staffers and 68 percent of managers said that they were either satisfied or very satisfied at work.
Of course, this varied from one company to the next, but the best results were seen at the 11 insurance companies which were named by Computer World as the best places to work in IT. Those leading insurance technology employment ratings were topped by USAA, which had the number 1 spot.