Insurance wages dip after flood pay-outs

Insurance wages dip after flood pay-outs By Trevor Treharne | 16/07/2012 12:05:00 AM | 0 comments

While pay packets across Australia are set to rocket this year to some of the highest levels in the world, the insurance industry is experiencing a slump due to the effects of the flood pay-outs.

Hay Group has predicted that Australian salaries will increase by an average of 4% across all industries in 2012 and Australians are currently out-earning their international counterparts, in a trend that will continue for the coming year.

According to the Australian Salary Movement Index from the Hay Group, the total annual reward for employees in the finance sector, increased by an average of 5.7% in the 12 months to February.

However, in the insurance sector actual salaries were between 3-10% below that of the national average and have dipped in the last six months, ?creating a challenge for this sector to retain top talent and drive productivity through reward strategies,? said the report.

?Six months ago insurance wages were in the positive, so it is just in that period where it has dropped into the negative,? Hay Group senior consultant Steven Paola told Insurance Business.

?That highlights the performance of the companies within the insurance industry as they have not been paying out such big bonuses compared with the banking and financial services industries.?

Paola said a number of elements would have affected the decrease, including the impact of losses from recent floods and other natural disasters.

?If you look at regional Queensland, that dropped quite dramatically due to the impact of the floods on its economy. However, we think that [insurance wages] will trend upwards in the next six to 12 months though. We only expect the insurance industry to be affected for a certain period of time.?

Source: http://insurance.blog7up.com/2012/07/15/insurance-wages-dip-after-flood-pay-outs/

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