The insurance industry will need to invest in and trumpet its use of technology to attract the next generation of workers, experts say.

Matthew Josefowicz, managing director and partner at New York-based insurance advisory firm Novarica, said that far from enticing young people to join the industry, the outmoded technology backbone present at many insurance companies may well be inhibiting technology-savvy people from considering a career in insurance.

“One of the challenges of recruiting of young talent into the insurance industry is that the electronic working environment is so different from what they have come to expect in their personal lives,” Mr. Josefowicz said. “The idea that it takes months of training in order to learn how to use something on a screen is an anathema to anyone under 30.”

Karen Furtado, partner at Boston-based insurance advisory firm Strategy Meets Action, said the insurance industry is in some ways a victim of the massive investments made in computer systems decades ago. These legacy systems remain functional but are expensive to maintain, Ms. Furtado said, Additionally, the pressure to replace these systems is becoming more acute as many of the employees most experienced with them approach retirement age and skills in legacy programming languages such as COBOL become rarer.

“Insurers are starting to really understand the impact of a retiring generation,” she said. “Modern technology can provide a pathway for young people to come into the industry.”

In addition to replacing legacy core processing systems with modern systems and architectures, insurers can attract a new, technology-proficient workforce by embracing trends such as mobile devices, social media and cloud computing.

“Social media doesn't deal with the underlying legacy issues, but it at least gives an insurance company the appearance of being forward-thinking,” she said. “These are not expensive investments, but they engage a youthful population.”

The shift toward the cloud may have further implications by shifting the nature of information technology work toward the strategic management of business capabilities from more prosaic work of managing applications and servers.

“The adoption rate of cloud in insurance is amazing,” she said. “The change in just the last two years has been remarkable.”

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Jeff Yates, Arlington, Va.-based-based executive director of the Agents Council for Technology for the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America agreed that the technologies the insurance industry needs to attract younger workers are the very same technologies they will need to run their businesses effectively.

“A good example of the industry using technology effectively is agents using tablets out in the field,” Mr. Yates said.

While the industry may well embrace new technology faster today than in years past, the industry's widely held reputation as a technology laggard persists, Ms. Furtado said, adding that much of that bad reputation is self-inflicted.

“We have to stop being disparaging about the industry,” she said. “There are a lot of innovation and interesting things going on. As an industry, we need to trumpet these things.”

Jason Terrell, director of programs for the Worthington, Ohio-based Griffith Insurance Education Foundation, which promotes the study and teaching of risk management and insurance, said the industry is making strides in raising its profile among younger people.

In May 2012, the foundation signed a formal affiliation with the American Institute for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters that is intended to help the industry attract and retain the talent needed to be successful.

Mr. Terrell said technology will be front and center in the campaign.

“Social media has to be a huge part of any effort to reach out to Generation Y,” he said. “Email is dead to them.”

Moreover, he noted that the image of the insurance industry as a technology backwater may itself be dated.

“We all assume that the image of the insurance industry is really bad,” he said. “What our research has shown is that millennials really don't have any impression of the industry. So we have a real opportunity to craft that message of what they think of the industry.”