What The Numbers Reveal About Insurance Staffing Today

Insurance leaders have long understood the need for digital transformation. Claims systems have evolved, customer experience tools have matured, but when it comes to staffing—especially the back-office roles that keep everything moving—many teams are still stuck in 2010.

Our latest industry report, The Insurance Operations Report: Scaling Smart with Global Talent, reveals just how much that’s costing carriers, brokerages, and TPAs. From intake to data entry, follow-ups to renewals, talent gaps in support and admin functions are creating real friction across the policy lifecycle.

And the problem isn’t going away.

U.S. staffing gaps are no longer a blip

We surveyed teams across P&C, health, and life insurance to understand where operations are breaking down, and what organizations need to start doing differently.

Admin roles are taking 30+ days to fill, on average.

The result? Missed renewals, slower claims, overstretched CSRs, and managers stuck training new hires every few months while workloads pile up.

The traditional, all-local hiring model simply isn’t built to withstand the new pace and complexity of insurance operations.

“Legacy staffing is quietly becoming one of the most expensive inefficiencies in the industry,” said Iffi Wahla, Edge CEO.

There’s a better model

Our research indicates that tweaking job descriptions or throwing more money at local hires is no longer cutting it. The model needs to be rethought entirely.

Remote-first, globally distributed admin teams, trained specifically for the insurance industry, are helping teams:

• Fill critical roles in under two weeks
• Reduce costs by 35% or more
• Improve retention and internal bandwidth across policy ops

These are not generic virtual assistants. They’re trained professionals with operational insurance knowledge, many with experience in carrier systems, CRM tools, and compliance workflows.

And they’re already delivering measurable outcomes at leading firms.

What the data reveals

With our report, we set out to put real numbers behind a shift that’s already underway, and to give insurance operators a clear view of the opportunity.

It’s not just about saving money. It’s about building a future-proof model that protects policyholder experience, enables scale, and frees your team to focus on higher-value work.

Explore the full report to see:

• Where admin inefficiencies are costing carriers most
• How global teams are supporting top-performing insurance operators
• Retention, compliance, and hiring metrics behind the shift

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