Alan Jay Kaufman is chairman, president and CEO of H.W. Kaufman Financial Group Inc. and its largest subsidiary, Burns & Wilcox. He recently spoke with Senior Editor Mark A. Hofmann about creating an internal educational resource — the Kaufman Institute — to provide continuing education for the company's employees.

Q How does the insurance industry stack up against other industries in attracting talent?

A When you look at the property and casualty insurance arena compared to accounting, finance, banking, consulting, there is a glaring problem with how our industry attracts, develops and retains outstanding talent.

The legal and financial worlds fixate on talent. The best companies and professional firms maintain close relationships with the top universities, never losing sight of the need for a constant influx of good people. And they typically have extensive programs in place to grow and develop their prized recruits.

Q Why does it lag behind some of the other industries?

A One reason is that few of the leading undergraduate and graduate business schools offer insurance-related coursework. Qualified students repeatedly choose other careers in business rather than a career in insurance. In my opinion, however, our industry offers stability, comparable or better earning potential, and an even greater quality of life.

Q What was the genesis of the Kaufman Institute, and how does it differ from other industry executive education initiatives?

A Compared to other industries, there simply is not the same level of commitment to education within the insurance industry. While I applaud the industry associations that have embarked on talent development and continuing education initiatives, greater investment is required to meet the increased demand.

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The cost of this talent gap is enormous. There are a limited number of top performers who are frequently poached, forcing firms to advance mediocre professionals. Ultimately, it raises the likelihood of costly mistakes, the burden of which is shouldered by our companies and clients.

We established the Kaufman Institute a few years ago as a corporate university exclusively available to our employees and offering a wide variety of training and skill-development courses. To date, more than 10,000 courses have been accessed by our team, who is now better-equipped to serve our brokers and agents.

Now we are relaunching the Kaufman Institute to make these sought-after courses in general business, insurance and risk management more widely available to the industry. The curriculum reflects our broad and deep industry expertise and affiliations with a number of academic institutions. We have designed courses to benefit all insurance professionals, from those seeking leadership roles in their organizations to individuals who simply need their licenses renewed.

Q Have other industry entities approached you about creating similar programs?

A Our team includes experts across a number of key business segments — brokerage, professional liability, environmental, marine and personal lines — and they regularly teach industrywide continuing education programs. We will formalize this instruction under the umbrella of the Kaufman Institute, and I expect to see a continued interest in leveraging our expertise to assist in filling the significant education gap.