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UK insurance firms report wide pay gaps between male and female employees

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UK insurance firms report wide pay gaps between male and female employees

Commercial insurance organizations in the United Kingdom reported significant differences in pay and bonuses for male and female employees as the deadline for gender pay gap reporting passed on Wednesday.

According to a Business Insurance analysis of 45 commercial insurance industry companies in the U.K., the average difference in hourly pay, calculated on a mean basis, was 37.6% lower for women and the average bonus was 64.9% lower for women. None of the companies reported a pay or bonus gap in favor of women.

Brokers reported a wider gap than insurers and reinsurers. While insurers and reinsurers reported an average pay gap of 34.2% and a bonus gap of 63.2%, brokers reported a pay gap of 46.3% and a bonus gap of 70.8%.

U.K. organizations with 250 or more employees are required to publish specific data about their gender pay gaps and a written statement, and report their data to the government online, beginning from 2017. The requirement was enshrined in the Equality Act of 2010, with the regulations coming into effect on April 5, 2017. The deadline to publish was April 4, 2018.

Many of the insurance industry firms said that while men and women are paid the same for comparable jobs, the gaps in pay and bonuses were due to more men being employed in senior positions. Most of the firms also said they were taking measures to close the gaps, including, introducing mentoring programs for women, training employees in unconscious bias, ensuring a diverse set of candidates are considered for senior positions and adjusting incentive pay to encourage managers to help close the gaps in compensation, among other things.

A U.K. government spokeswoman said that employers were still reporting past the deadline and the government did not yet have average for gender pay gaps at all organizations. Based on raw data on more than 10,000 employers that have filed their reports and is available on the U.K.’s pay gap reporting site, the average pay gap for all U.K. employers is 14.5% and the average bonus gap is 15.3%

While employers have been reporting their gender pay gaps for several months, many reported in the past two weeks as the deadline approached, including the brokerage operations of Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. and Aon P.L.C.

Marsh reported a mean hourly gender pay gap for its U.K. operations — including its principal commercial broking unit Marsh Ltd., Jelf Ltd., Bluefin Insurance Group Ltd. and Guy Carpenter & Co. Ltd. — of 42.5% and median gap of 41.1%; it reported a mean bonus gap of 60.2% and median bonus gap of 71.4%. Marsh reported that 33% of employees in its top pay quartile were women and 64% of employees in its lowest pay quartile were women.

Aon U.K. Ltd. reported a mean hourly gender pay gap of 37.9% and median gap of 31.8%; the brokerage reported a mean bonus gap of 75.1% and a median gap of 52.3%. Aon reported that 20.3% of employees in its top pay quartile were women and 54.6% in its lowest pay quartile were women.

For details on the gender pay gap information of the 45 commercial insurance entities tracked by Business Insurance, click here.

While there is no comparable data for U.S. employers, earlier this week life reinsurer Reinsurance Group of America Inc. became the first insurance industry employer to agree to a shareholder proposal targeting financial services firms that it disclose its gender pay gap by the end of 2018.

Last year, the Trump administration abandoned an Obama administration proposal that companies report data on how much they paid workers of different genders, race and ethnicities, saying it would be too burdensome for employers.

 

 

 

 

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