Every March, our industry gets a moment to pause and recognize the women shaping insuran
ce—not just through leadership and advocacy, but through the economic power they generate
every day. Women are driving business creation, influencing commercial buying decisions, and shaping household financial choices at unprecedented lev
els. If 2026 is the year of Give to Gain, the message is simple: when we invest in women, the entire industry benefits.
(Editor’s Note: International Women’s Day was March 8.)
Women-Owned Businesses: The Opportunity
Women continue to create nearly half of all new businesses each year, a trend that has held steady for multiple years. These businesses are growing
faster than the overall economy, especially in professional services, financial services, and com
munity-based sectors. Women business owners are also primary insurance decision‑makers, an increasingly powerful segment of the commercial lines market.
And they buy differently. Research consistently shows that women prefer relationship‑driven, trust‑based partnerships. They want advisors who listen, underst
and their businesses, and want to build long‑term relationships. That has direct implications for agencies and carriers:
Women business owners are more likely to choose women advisors.
Women-led agencies and women producers often see higher retention among women-owned businesses.
Carriers with wome
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n in underwriting, distribution, and field leadership roles build stronger trust with women buyers and producers.
Investing in women isn’t a DEI initiative—it’s a growth strategy.
The Representation Gap: The Business Challenge
The 2024 Agency Universe Study gives us the data, women make up roughly half of the indepe
ndent agency workforce, yet only one in five agency owners are women and on the carrier side, women represent nearly 60% of the workforce but hold only 24% of C‑suite positions.
In February, I co-facilitated a MyNetwork virtual book club using The Broken Rung. Within the book, the authors share data and lived experiences of women across industries to better understand why women are und
rrepresented in leadership positions. There are so many insights worth sharing from this book, but for the purposes of this article I’ll limit it to 2 key points:
Experience Capital – defined by the authors as “the skills, relationships, and credi
bility that fuel upward mobility” is a key concept for women and men of all ages and stages in our industry. Understanding the types of experiences which build a woman’s experience capital is key.
If you’re in a position of authority think about ways you can support women within your organization to build their experience capital.
If you’re early in your care
er within the industry, you have the awareness early on of what you can do, or what you can ask to do, to build your experience capital early.
The Broken Rung – identified as the first step up on the corporate ladder into a managerial position. The book claims if we are able to solve for the broken ru
ng – fixing that misstep early in women’s careers – we would be able to solve for gender parity in leadership quicker than taking any other measures.
If you have access to employee demographic and employment data, you can review your talent pipeline to determine when and where within the organization women are being promoted into that first managerial position, and where they are not.
