A CALL TO ACTION

Society of CPCU takes official step toward diversity

By Bruce Hicks, CLU, CPCU

A city that's home to a market where vendors fling fish, where teens decorate themselves with multiple body piercings, where hundreds of franchise gourmet coffeeshops flourish and streets are dotted by "down and out" musicians is an ideal setting for a meeting on diversity. And so it was that immediately preceding the Society of CPCU's annual meeting, Seattle played host to such a meeting--the purpose of which was not to learn about diversity, but rather how to encourage it. Seattle's Washington Convention Center was the site where the CPCU Society's new diversity task force met to talk about how the Society of CPCU could make an official commitment to diversity.

The Society's Board of Governors gave the task force a specific goal:

"(To) recommend ways to increase minority and gender participation at the local and national level of the CPCU Society by creating a positive and progressive environment for participation."

The task force was created in 2001, at a meeting of the Society of CPCU's governing board. Ivan Bullock, a vice president of operations with State Farm Insurance, is chairperson of the task force.

Five of the seven insurance professionals who attended the Seattle meeting are on the payroll of State Farm--a company that has taken a lead in committing to a diverse work force. Because of this, the majority of the task force already works in an environment that the CPCU Society is attempting to create. As a result, these insurance people already have intimate knowledge of the effort needed to create a more representative pool of workers.

Importance of diversity

Unless you go through your day wearing a blindfold and ear plugs, you're aware that the insurance industry is not reflective of the insurance-consuming public. The industry also has difficulty in attracting new, young talent. The Society also appears to have difficulty getting more new CPCUs to become involved with the Society on local, regional and national levels.

In addition to these issues, the group discussed several related concerns. Specifically, that seeking diversity is essential if the Society's members hope to relate to insurance customers. Also, that diversity is important if the Society is going to gain a wider perspective within its membership. In acknowledging that the insurance industry is fairly homogenous, the group noted that if this situation is not addressed, the gap between the Society and the consumer public would become wider. This last point recognizes the fact that the United States' population is becoming increasingly diverse.

Encouraging increased diversity

The next agenda item for the task force was to examine how it could address the charge given to it by the Board of Governors. Bullock presented some demographics on the Society's membership. The membership is currently more than two-thirds male, more than half have held the designation less than 10 years and the membership is spread fairly evenly among the Society's various regions. However, no information was available concerning the membership's ethnic breakdown.

The task force recognized that, while increased diversity was important, its knowledge of the Society's lack of diversity was anecdotal. In light of this and the task force's charge, the members agreed that the task force should make a set of recommendations to be presented to the Board of Governors.

Diversity recommendations

The task force developed nearly a dozen suggestions to help promote diversity within the CPCU Society. Here's a brief summary of those suggestions:

Develop or modify a mentoring program. The Society of CPCU has a mentoring program in place that is designed to help CPCU candidates in their studies toward the CPCU designation.

This program could be modified for use in building diversity if veteran CPCUs can be matched with students so that non-white candidates can see that minorities not only achieve the designation, but are active members of the Society.

Gather demographic data. Ironically, this task runs counter to the notion of diversity awareness. But in its examination of the demographics of the Society, the task force discovered that no statistics are available to provide a "snapshot of diversity." The most likely reason that such information is not available is because it isn't collected during the time that an individual registers for CPCU Society membership, classes, or tests. This is a good thing, since it means that diversity information is not considered necessary.

However, in order to establish a base line from which to measure a growth in diversity, the task force needs to know the racial composition of the CPCU Society. So the task force asked the Board of Governors for any information in the Society's database that would assist with supporting what task force members knew--based on their experience and observation. If the information was not available, the task force proposed that it be gathered.

Survey. If the information concerning the Society's racial composition were not available, the task force recommended that a survey be created and used to formally gather this information from Society membership. In distributing this survey the task force would stress that the survey was necessary to establish a base line of where the membership currently stands. It would also allow the task force to track demographic changes.

Visibility awareness/communica-tions. The CPCU Society already enjoys a certain level of diversity. However this could be better reflected in the organization's newsletters, magazines, and journals. One approach would be for the CPCU Society staff photographers to take pictures of non-white members at functions and meetings. This simple action would increase everyone's awareness.

Awards/chapter recognition. The Society recently revamped its chapter awards program, changing it to encourage pursuit of candidate development, good works and continuing education. The task force recommended including "level of diversity" as another objective for chapters to pursue in order to compete for top chapter awards. Of course this would have to be an option rather than mandatory since the ability to pursue diversity is influenced by geography (e.g., Utah vs. New York). An alternative method to measure results may be by percentage of change.

Offer diversity workshops with CE credit. There's no "E" like "CE"! CPCUs, like all insurance folks, live and die by CE credits, even having their own Continuing Professional Development certification. Arranging for local chapters to offer CE-eligible diversity workshops accomplishes two goals: spreading the word on diversity and providing an opportunity to pick up additional credits.

Top leadership involvement. It is critical that the Society's officers and governors keep the issue of diversity among its priorities. An important first step would be for the executive group to go through a diversity workshop together.

Diversity awareness campaign. In concert with top leadership keeping diversity among its priorities, the task force recommended a formal program that imbues diversity in the CPCU membership, leadership, educational programs and communications.

Web site diversity. On this point, the task force recommended that the Society enhance its Web site to include a variety of information related to diversity. For guidance, the task force pointed to a Web site developed by another insurance organization that offers a breakdown of membership, diversity workshops, articles on diversity and images that reflect the diversity of its members.

A mission statement

Developing a mission statement may be perceived as cliché. Cliché or not, a mission statement is still a public declaration of what an organization believes is important. In order to make the biggest impact, the diversity task force recommended that the Society adopt the following as a separate statement:

"The Society of CPCU is committed to increasing the diversity of its candidates, members and leaders to allow for its continued success in a changing global environment."

While it's unlikely that you'll see this reproduced on T-shirts, bumper stickers or posters, words should encourage action and action is one of the task force's goals--the justification for a distinct mission statement on the group's commitment to expanding the variety of the CPCU Society membership.

Thinking outside the box?

One might say that the recommendations set forth by the diversity task force are a result of thinking outside of the box. But it may be more appropriate to say the task force used different boxes, ones that come in different dimensions, materials and colors to accomplish what it did during this meeting.

By establishing the diversity task force and scheduling the task force's initial meeting in conjunction with its annual meeting, the CPCU Society demonstrated that it won't adhere to a status quo that could threaten obsolescence. However, it's the next steps that matter most. Action is needed to ratify the efforts of the task force. The group made its recommendations, along with suggestions on which members could take the lead on their implementation.

The task force's immediate duty is complete. It's now up to the Society's leadership to decide what is worthwhile to pursue. *

The author

Bruce Hicks, CPCU, CLU, is senior editor, Technical and Educational Products Division, for The Rough Notes Company, Inc. He has been in the insurance industry since 1981, serving several regional and national companies in personal lines underwriting, product research and development, auditing, regulation and compliance. He is a member of the Society of CPCU's Diversity Task Force.

TWO VOICES ON DIVERSITY

Fred Marsh, vice president - operations, State Farm Insurance Company, who participated in the CPCU task force's meeting in Seattle; and Tonya Barnes, a senior account coordinator with Hartford Specialty (who was unable to attend the meeting), share more insights about the importance of diversity.

Fred Marsh

Q: Why should an organization be concerned about its diversity?

A: For an organization to truly benefit from all its talent resources, the organization must leverage the diversity within its ranks or acquire diversity--bring it in from the outside.

Q: How would a higher level of diversity affect an organization?

A: Diversity adds a new perspective and dimension to an organization's direction for the future because through diversity, the organization's leadership has a new set of eyes and ears, which brings better understanding and more buy-in from all associates.

Q: Why it is important that the Society of CPCU seek greater diversity?

A: Through more diversity, the CPCU Society has a chance to bring a new appreciation to more people and especially minority groups about the benefits of insurance and financial services in personal and professional endeavors. It is also a chance for the Society to assist in the development of more minority individuals who are being hired in larger numbers at insurance companies. By doing so, more minority individuals would join and participate in CPCU chapters.

Q: What would be the pay-off in developing such insurance professionals?

A: Minority insurance professionals can be a great asset in the field through assisting and counseling other minorities in personal and business needs.

Tonya Barnes

Q: How would you define diversity?

A: I would define diversity as "inclusion." I believe that the practice of diversifying a business is fully utilizing a melting pot of resources attributed to individuals of both sexes, all ethnicities, religions, and others living non-traditional lifestyles who bring quite different viewpoints, talents and skills to the workplace.

Q: What is the current level of diversity found in the insurance profession, Society of CPCU or both?

A: In my six years in the reinsurance/insurance industry, it is my observation that there is much work to be done. There are, of course, some companies that embrace diversity and are constantly and consistently working toward a goal of a more diverse workplace. However, there are just as many or more companies that profess a commitment to diversity; but, in fact, that commitment is little more than lip service. In both cases, however, there is so much room for improvement. I have found the CPCU Society on the local and national levels to be more than willing to practice being inclusive. I find the CPCU Society's task to be more in the order of getting their message of inclusion out to the members.

Q: What would be the result if the Society or the insurance profession maintained the status quo on diversity?

A: If the Society or the insurance profession maintained the status quo on diversity it would be to their detriment. The world is changing around us everyday. The businesses that will remain stable and viable are those that understand the needs of their clients and customers. As the world is becoming more diverse, so are the clients and customers of the world. "Smart" businesses value workers who can assist businesses and organizations in tapping into the subtleties and nuances of its customer base. There is no one group of individuals that encompass all the individual characteristics of our society. If the businesses and organizations maintain the status quo, they are, in effect, refusing to change with the world, thereby eventually rendering themselves obsolete.

Q: Do you have a brief personal anecdote involving diversity that you could share?

A: During the six years that I've been in the reinsurance/insurance industry, I've been told by a supervisor that he did not see me going anywhere in the company because I'm an African-American female. My initial reaction was anger. However, I realized the greatest loss was to the company, from which I resigned, as they had lost such a great resource. I'm a hard worker, talented, energetic with a great deal to offer. It saddens me greatly that the business world is still hesitant to embrace those of us who are not "traditionally packaged," even as we continue to prove our worth.

Diversity feedback?

I think that diversity is an important issue, but I'm open-minded enough to be interested in other opinions. Please share your thoughts on this subject with respect to either the insurance industry or society at large. If I get enough comments, I would be happy to do a follow-up article. Let me know your thoughts. I can be contacted at bruceh@roughnotes.com.

--Bruce Hicks, CPCU