Staff Anxiety And Stress Is A Risk Factor For Insurers

• Published date: 05 June 2020
• Author: Ms Lesley Allan
• Subject Matter: Insurance, Insurance Laws and Products
• Law Firm: Clyde & Co

Employees working in the insurance sector may not face the same type of stress as those employed in the emergency services or education, but the need to recognise the issue and address it is just as pressing.

One might imagine that as insurers are responsible for managing so many stress-related employment claims, they would be highly attuned to the impact of work on the emotional wellbeing of employees. However, are insurers attuned to the risks presented to their own workforces, particularly when employees are being asked to cope with new ways of working, for example under the Covid 19 Lockdown?

The Health and Safety Executive's publication Tackling Work-related Stress notes that employees in service organisations, which include insurers and brokers, are subjected to a number of factors that can create stress and anxiety even in the absence of the challenges created by Covid 19. First, you're offering a service, so your workload is reactive and possibly out of your control. Second, mobile phones and technology make you contactable outside normal office hours. Third, you may be managed by people based in another location. Finally, your organisation is subject to considerable external scrutiny and inspection. In present circumstances, you are isolated from the colleagues from whom you gain support and remote working may make accessing data slower or more difficult at a time when customers have an urgent need for information and reassurance.

In addition, organisational change has been a major characteristic of the insurance industry for some time now. Over the last 5-6 years, many insurance businesses have made major adjustments in order to keep up with new technology, emerging risks and client expectations - not forgetting the perennial need to keep cutting costs. On top of that, there are our favourite organisational bookends: restructuring and redundancy - to which we can now add the potential furlough of colleagues. Bearing in mind that humans tend to struggle to cope with change - particularly when imposed - it can hardly come as a surprise that employee stress claims across the board are rising, and insurers are not immune.

Constant change

If managed poorly, large-scale organisational changes can easily result in claims for stress or even bullying. On some occasions, changes give rise to stop-gap solutions that increase the demands made on particular roles. Over the short term, individuals may well be able to soak up the additional workload; however...