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.

By Doug Blair, Managing Partner — The Blair Kenner Group

It hits between meetings, usually. Another retirement email. Another resignation letter from a senior adjuster who’s “going to explore options.” Another requisition sitting unapproved because nobody agrees on what the role should actually look like anymore. If you run a TPA, an IME company, a medical case management network, or a claims operation at a regional carrier, you already know this feeling. The talent pipeline that sustained this industry for 30 years is running thin — and the organizations that aren’t paying attention will feel it before they see it coming.

This is the talent crisis in the P&C claims ecosystem. It doesn’t get the headlines that underwriting or actuarial shortages do. But it’s just as real, and in some corners of claims, it’s already here.

Act One: The Great Exit

The claims world built its leadership bench the hard way — through years of field experience, mentorship, and institutional knowledge that doesn’t transfer through a job description. A VP of Claims at a mid-sized TPA didn’t become effective by reading a manual. They became effective by handling complex files, navigating difficult vendors, managing carrier relationships under pressure, and learning what reserve discipline actually looks like when it’s stress-tested.

That generation is leaving. Retirements are accelerating across adjusting, case management, utilization review, and TPA operations. And unlike some industries where experienced talent can be replaced with a fast learner and a training program, claims leadership requires a depth of contextual knowledge that takes years to build. When a 25-year Director of Claims walks out the door, they take with them relationships, judgment, and pattern recognition that no onboarding checklist replaces.

The bench behind them is thinner than most organizations want to admit.

Act Two: The Claims Tech Disruption

While succession planning drags on, automation, AI triage, and advanced analytics are being written into nearly every function. Bill review, utilization management, IME scheduling, and first-notice-of-loss handling are all becoming more technology-dependent — and the job descriptions are mutating accordingly.

The ideal Director of Claims Operations at a modern TPA now needs to understand AI-assisted adjudication workflows, data integrity across platforms, and vendor performance analytics, in addition to the traditional claims fundamentals. That’s a different profile than what the industry hired a decade ago, and the talent pool that meets both criteria — seasoned claims expertise plus technology fluency — is genuinely small.

Organizations that try to hire purely from the “experienced claims professional” pool will miss the tech evolution. Those that chase pure tech talent will hire people who don’t understand how claims actually work on the ground. The winning hire sits at the intersection, and that person is in high demand.

Act Three: The Insure-Tech Drain

Meanwhile, claims technology companies — SaaS platforms, AI-driven triage vendors, managed care networks — are actively recruiting from the same TPA and carrier benches that traditional organizations are trying to protect. They move faster, often pay differently, and offer the appeal of building something new rather than managing something established.

The result is a quiet but real drain. Senior claims professionals with technology comfort and strategic thinking — exactly the people every TPA and carrier wants as their next VP or Director — are increasingly fielding calls from insure-tech firms that didn’t exist five years ago. Traditional organizations aren’t just competing with each other for this talent anymore. They’re competing with an entirely different type of employer.

What It Means for Hiring Leaders

The claims talent crisis is not an HR problem. It’s a business continuity problem. Organizations that treat executive hiring as a reactive process — post a requisition when a seat opens, review whoever applies, make a decision — are already behind.

The organizations navigating this well are doing a few things differently. They’re mapping their succession vulnerabilities before they become vacancies. They’re actively building relationships with senior claims professionals who aren’t looking yet but could be open to the right conversation. And they’re working with recruiting partners who already know the ecosystem — who can identify the right candidate profile before it becomes an emergency search.

That last part matters more than most hiring leaders acknowledge. In a talent pool this specialized, the difference between a three-month search and a six-month search often comes down to who your recruiter already knows and who they can reach.

The Script Doesn’t Have to Write Itself

The talent crisis in P&C claims is real, but it’s not inevitable for every organization. The ones that plan ahead — that treat leadership hiring as a strategic function rather than an administrative one — will be the ones that build durable, high-performing claims teams while their competitors scramble to backfill.

At The Blair Kenner Group, we work exclusively inside this ecosystem. We know the companies, the roles, and the professionals who can move the needle. When the retirement email lands or the resignation comes in, we’d rather you already have a conversation in progress than be starting from zero.

BKG places executive talent exclusively in the P&C claims ecosystem — TPAs, IME firms, medical case management, bill review, and claims technology organizations. Let’s talk before the vacancy is urgent.