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COMMENTARY: Age bias a growing problem in the insurance industry

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COMMENTARY: Age bias a growing problem in the insurance industry

I often like to paraphrase Kathy Bates' iconic line in the film “Fried Green Tomatoes,” when she tells two young women after ramming their car in retaliation for beating her out of a parking space, “I'm older and have more insurance,” by saying, “I'm older and know more about insurance.”

After more than 25 years of reporting for Business Insurance, I think I may have picked up a thing or two about the industry. And throughout my career, I have met some extremely knowledgeable people, some of whom have been kind enough to take the time to break it down into simpler terms so that I, a reporter, might better understand this extremely complicated discipline.

That's why it worries me to see so many of these astute insurance industry veterans given their pink slips years before their scheduled retirement dates. It seems too great of a risk for an industry that remains under siege by lawmakers, government regulators and consumer groups to trade its institutional brain trust for younger, cheaper labor.

While a few of those who were “let go” in recent years have continued to share their industry acumen by serving as consultants to their former firms or to other organizations, far more of them have resorted to finessing their resumes to hide work experience prior to a certain date so they will appear younger.

Even as the population ages and people continue to work later in life, age discrimination is rampant in our society. According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 23,465 violations of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act were filed in 2011, up from 23,264 in 2010 and 22,778 in 2009. The age discrimination allegations reached a record 24,582 cases in 2008 during the height of the recession.

Rather than putting older workers out to pasture, as it appears so many employers are doing, they should think of age as yet another element of diversity, just as they do race, gender and sexual orientation. They should welcome the contributions made by older workers. A wise man once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Experience is the best teacher, especially in business.

Ageism also can make employees of every age feel less interested and complacent in their jobs, according to new research by Sloan Center on Aging and Work at Boston College. The researchers found when younger workers perceive their older colleagues are less likely to be promoted or given tough assignments because of their age, they themselves become less engaged in their own work.