Why Choose an Insurance Career? A Pilot Study of University Students’ Preferences Regarding the Insurance Profession

Madhusudan Acharyya () and Davide Secchi
Additional contact information
Madhusudan Acharyya: Glasgow School for Business and Society, Glasgow Caledonian University, 40 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX, U.K.

The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, 2015, vol. 40, issue 1, 108-130

Abstract: The study investigates the most relevant factors affecting business students’ choice of a career in the insurance industry. Recent industry surveys indicate that students find the insurance profession uninteresting and so are reluctant to pursue a career within it. However, many of the survey respondents showed an interest in the profession. We tested three hypotheses to determine whether student choices are affected by environmental, opportunity and awareness factors. The study applied structural equation modelling and regression analysis to the data and finds that nationality, together with other environmental factors, significantly affects their choice of the insurance profession. In addition, we found that students are unaware of the underlying philosophy of insurance businesses, their products and their vital role in the economic and social system. The lack of adequate research, education providers, and the shortage of study materials and inadequate marketing strategies are among the key causes of students’ reluctance to engage with the insurance profession. This study may assist insurers, educators and professional bodies to develop their strategy directed towards attracting talents to the insurance industry.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/gpp/journal/v40/n1/pdf/gpp201333a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/gpp/journal/v40/n1/full/gpp201333a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:gpprii:v:40:y:2015:i:1:p:108-130

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/finance/journal/41288/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice is currently edited by Christophe Courbage

More articles in The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice from Palgrave Macmillan, The Geneva Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().