Insurance sector seeks young Jamaicans as workforce ages

Jamaica’s insurance industry is struggling to replace departing workers with new entrants, creating openings for young people seeking careers, says Tamarra Glaves, managing director for general insurance at GK Financial Group.

Speaking in a television interview, Glaves said insurance has long been an accidental career rather than a standard university pathway. Over the past five years, she said, many people have left the sector while few have joined, because graduates and school-leavers rarely consider it.

She noted that some secondary schools now cover topics such as public liability insurance in Principles of Business — her son, who is in fourth form, recently studied the subject — which she called a useful step. Formal training also exists through the College of Insurance and Professional Studies for people already in the field or looking to enter it, alongside other programmes such as those linked to the Insurance Institute of Jamaica and UWI extension courses.

Glaves, who began as an executive assistant intending to study law and told then-boss Grace Burnett she would leave the industry, has stayed 24 years. She said the work spans customer experience, human resources, finance, risk, reinsurance, actuarial science, claims, underwriting and business development — far more than selling policies.

Public perception often centres on aggressive sales calls, she and the interviewer noted, but Glaves argued insurance protects livelihoods and ambitions. She cited a taxi driver supporting three school-age children who has an at-fault crash: cover can stop college savings from being spent on repairs or liability.

Success, she said, depends on attitude and aptitude — how people present themselves and their willingness to learn — as much as technical skill. She described insurance as a future-facing career tied to climate change, cyber risk, artificial intelligence and other innovation, and said AI would improve how staff work rather than remove jobs.

Her first degree was in management studies. She advised school students not to assume only mathematics is relevant: business, marketing, human resources, customer service and even psychology can fit where people want to serve clients. The Grace Kennedy group, she said, offers scholarships and internships across its strategic business units, including GK General Insurance, Key Insurance and Allied Insurance Brokers, plus Caribbean operations in the Eastern Caribbean, Turks and Caicos, Antigua and elsewhere. Summer placements, internships and short observation visits are available through company websites and social channels.

Glaves herself later worked in St. Lucia helping restructure a Grace Kennedy company and supported branch development in Antigua and St. Vincent, with further training in the United Kingdom and the United States. She urged jobseekers and career-changers to research the sector, ask questions and try it: opportunities are wide, and employers such as GK can develop people who show capacity even without every formal qualification at the outset.