By Doug Blair, Managing Partner — The Blair Kenner Group

There’s a talent competition happening inside the P&C claims ecosystem that most traditional organizations aren’t taking seriously enough — and the insure-tech firms are quietly winning it.

Over the past three to four years, a new category of employer has entered the claims talent market: technology companies purpose-built for the insurance claims process. AI-assisted adjudication platforms. Digital IME coordination networks. Automated bill review and cost containment SaaS providers. Claims workflow and analytics companies. These organizations are growing fast, funded well, and actively recruiting from the same TPA and carrier benches that traditional claims organizations have relied on for decades.

The result is a talent war that most hiring leaders in traditional claims operations haven’t fully registered yet. And the insure-tech side is winning more of these conversations than you might expect.

What Insure-Tech Is Offering

To understand why experienced claims professionals are moving toward technology companies, you have to understand what those companies are offering — and it’s not always about compensation.

Mission and momentum. Senior claims leaders who have spent 20 years inside large TPA or carrier operations often feel the weight of organizational inertia. Established processes, legacy platforms, complex approval chains, and risk-averse cultures can make meaningful change feel slow. Insure-tech firms offer the opposite: the chance to build something, to see direct impact, and to work in an environment where claims expertise is treated as a competitive advantage rather than a cost center.

Equity and upside. For the right candidate at the right stage of a company’s growth, equity participation represents a financial opportunity that a salary increase at an established TPA cannot replicate. Not every insure-tech firm will generate a meaningful return, but the possibility is real enough to factor into the calculus for executives who are already financially secure and looking for a different kind of reward.

Title and scope. A Director of Claims Operations at a large TPA may oversee a defined function within a complex hierarchy. At a growth-stage claims technology company, that same person might carry a VP or Chief Claims Officer title with direct input into product development, client strategy, and company direction. The scope is broader, the visibility is higher, and the role feels more central to the organization’s success.

What Traditional Claims Organizations Still Have

The talent competition isn’t one-sided. TPAs, regional carriers, IME networks, and bill review organizations retain significant advantages — but they need to articulate them more deliberately than they currently do.

Scale and stability. Insure-tech firms carry real risk. Many won’t survive. The ones that do will look different in three years than they do today. Experienced claims leaders with families, mortgages, and retirement timelines weigh that uncertainty carefully. A VP-level role at an established TPA with a strong carrier book and 30-year track record represents something an early-stage tech company cannot offer: security.

Depth of craft. The P&C claims world is one where expertise compounds over time. The opportunity to run a sophisticated, high-volume claims operation — managing complex coverage questions, multi-jurisdiction regulatory requirements, and large-loss files — is genuinely rare. Candidates who care about mastery of the craft, not just title and equity, often find that the most intellectually challenging work still lives inside traditional claims organizations.

Career trajectory in a known landscape. The path from Director to VP to SVP to CCO is well-defined inside established claims organizations. Mentorship structures exist. Networks are deep. The industry relationships built inside a large TPA or carrier have enduring value across the entire claims ecosystem — including, eventually, in insure-tech companies that need those relationships to sell and scale.

What the Talent War Means for Hiring Leaders

If you run a TPA, an IME company, a medical case management network, or a claims operation at a regional carrier, the insure-tech competition for your talent is not theoretical. It’s already happening in your mid-management ranks, and it’s starting to reach Director and VP levels.

The organizations navigating this well are doing a few things differently.

They’re having retention conversations proactively. Not waiting for a resignation letter to understand why a high-performing Director of Claims might be entertaining an insure-tech conversation. The most effective retention happens before an offer is made — when there’s still time to address the underlying motivation.

They’re expanding what they offer beyond compensation. Title, scope, visibility, and the chance to lead meaningful change inside the organization are legitimate retention tools. Claims leaders who feel like they’re building something — not just maintaining something — are less susceptible to insure-tech recruiting.

They’re moving faster on searches. In a market where insure-tech firms move quickly and make fast decisions, traditional organizations that run 120-day hiring processes are losing candidates to offers that came in at week six. Speed is now a competitive variable in claims talent acquisition.

What It Means for Candidates

If you’re a senior claims leader currently weighing an insure-tech opportunity against a traditional claims role, a few questions are worth sitting with:

• What stage is the company at, and what does the realistic exit timeline look like for the equity to have value?
• Who leads the claims function today, and what’s the actual depth of claims expertise on the leadership team?
• Is the insure-tech role built around your expertise, or does it require you to become someone different?
• If the company doesn’t make it, what does your resume look like on the other side?

Neither path is universally right. The right answer depends on where you are in your career, what you’re optimizing for, and what kind of work you want to be doing in five years. The best conversations I have with senior claims candidates are the ones where we work through that framework honestly — without a predetermined outcome.

BKG places executive talent exclusively in the P&C claims ecosystem — TPAs, IME firms, medical case management, bill review, and claims technology organizations. Whether you’re a hiring leader navigating the talent competition or a candidate weighing your options, we work both sides of this market.