Temps tipped to lift insurance firms

Interim IT managers can help drag insurance firms out of the technological stone age, but firms seem blissfully unaware of this fact.

A survey of financial services firms with more than 1,000 staff found 71% of employees are permanent, with insurance firms particularly lax on realising the benefits of temporary IT directors and managers.

It might seem common sense that you don't want your top dog to be temporary, but insurance firms have the double monkey on their back of clunking legacy systems and extensive mandatory regulation. Bringing in an interim IT manager could give insurance firms the perspective to look to future technological needs.

According to Chris Potter, technology assurance partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, "The key is having people who can get the mandatory things done, but also look forward to what the business needs and have robust commercial conversations with the business leaders about how much some of these changes will cost."

Though insurance firms lag behind the investment banks in their appetite for contractors, Potter says they are increasingly taking on interim IT directors as well as people without specific IT experience: "They often come from a back-office operations background. Linkage between IT and the other back-office operations needs to be quite strong. So often, having somebody who can understand the IT side of things but also understands the business side of things is critical to getting value out of the IT functions."

An interim IT director in an insurance firm can expect to earn between 750 and 1.5k a day. Potential candidates don't have to come with bags of experience in the insurance sector, but it helps to have a good understanding of the industry, to have experience in the financial sector, and to be adaptable.

While the interim players might have the ability to look at the bigger picture, continuity is also important within an organisation. Potter claims most middle-management roles will be permanent, but interim managers with experience in multiple firms might be better placed to assess IT business needs.

Dave Pye, CEO of Highams Group, which conducted the survey, agrees: "Interim managers bring a huge amount of experience and objectivity from previous assignments to a new role. Increasingly, insurance companies are tapping into this knowledge to help with change management, strategic development and extra management bandwidth."