eFinancialCareers

The insurance industry is on the hunt for risk management talent but for banking specialists, making the transition could be, well, risky.

Risk and insurance company Marsh is said by The Times to be hiring more than 100 specialist 'risk consultants' around the world to tap large corporations’ demand for better management of their risk exposure.

The company has said it hopes to attract and train people from all sectors, including banking and financial services, in an effort to become the world’s 'number one risk adviser' and largest insurance broker.

But banking risk specialists thinking of making the leap will be unlikely to find it an easy transition, cautions Robert Charles, a director of recruitment firm Joslin Rowe's insurance division.

“The insurance industry in the past has been quite rigid and inflexible about bringing in non-insurance people. And risk management in banking and insurance are completely different,” he explains.

“They would not necessarily want someone from a banking risk perspective because that is all about financial risk, the risk position of an investment, rather than as in traditional insurance the tangible risks an organisation needs to be looking after,” he adds.

What’s more, although the sort of brokering services provided to big corporates are becoming increasingly complex, there is unlikely to be much of a financial incentive to switch.

According to financial recruiter Robert Walters, investment banks’ operational risk specialists with five or more years’ experience can expect to be earning anything upwards of £85k.

By comparison, the most senior insurance risk consultants are unlikely to top £90k, according to Joslin Rowe’s Charles.

In a separate move, the Sunday Times reports that Prudential, the UK financial services and insurance company, is looking at cutting as many as 3,000 jobs as part of a restructuring operation which may see back-office roles outsourced to Mumbai.