I spoke to a client last night about the state of the candidate market. His inquiry was in an attempt to gain an understanding as to why he hasn’t seen more candidates.

I've been placing people in insurance careers for over thirty years, through soft markets and hard ones, through mergers that erased whole departments overnight and growth spurts that had carriers fighting over the same underwriters. In all that time, I've never seen candidates cling to their current seats very much like we are seeing today.

There's a name for it: job hugging. And if you work in this industry, whether you're the one hiring or the one being recruited, you need to understand what's actually driving it, because not all of it is healthy.

Recent research shows roughly three out of four employees plan to stay in their current roles through 2027. That's not a minor dip in movement, that's a labor market that has largely stopped circulating. And when you look under the hood, the reason isn't what you'd hope. Close to half of those staying put say they're doing it out of fear and economic uncertainty, not because they've found their dream job.

In insurance specifically, I'm hearing this from claims adjusters who've watched their carrier go through two reorganizations in eighteen months. I'm hearing it from underwriters who took a hybrid role during the tight labor market of a few years ago and are now watching return-to-office mandates roll out with no warning. I'm hearing it from agency producers who are nervous about book portability language in their contracts and don't want to test it in this environment.

None of that is irrational. It's a rational response to a market that feels less predictable than it did even two years ago.

Here's the distinction I try to help both job seekers and hiring managers see clearly, because it cuts both ways.

Smart risk-aversion looks like this: You're in a role with a clear growth path, a manager who advocates for you, and compensation that's kept pace with the market. You're staying because leaving would mean giving up real, tangible advantages, not because you're afraid to find out what else is out there. That's not job hugging. That's just good judgment.

Stagnation dressed up as caution looks different. You haven't had a real conversation about your career trajectory in over a year. You know, if you're honest, that you're underpaid relative to your peers at other carriers, you've seen the salary surveys, you've heard what your former colleagues are making but the thought of interviewing again feels exhausting. You're staying because the process of leaving is scarier than the cost of staying. That's the version I want people to examine closely, because it compounds. Insurance moves in cycles, and the people who sit out a hiring window when their skills are in demand often find themselves trying to move later, in a tighter market, from a weaker negotiating position.

What This Means If You're Hiring

If you're a hiring manager in this market, low quit rates might feel like good news, your team isn't leaving. But I'd encourage you not to read that as engagement. In a job-hugging market, retention and satisfaction are not the same metric, and treating them as interchangeable is a mistake I see experienced leaders make constantly.

Your best underwriter who hasn't left in three years might be your most loyal employee. Or she might be your most trapped one, quietly building a case for why she'll leave the moment the market loosens, and you won't see it coming because she's still hitting her numbers. The way to tell the difference is simple, but it requires actually doing it: have the stay conversation before someone else has the counteroffer conversation. Ask what would make them consider leaving. Ask what they'd need to see in the next twelve months to feel like this is still the right seat for them. If you haven't asked, don't assume the silence means contentment.

This also matters for how you source talent right now. Candidates who are technically "open" to a conversation but not actively job hunting are a much larger pool than usual, because so many people who'd normally be applying on job boards are instead waiting to be approached. If your recruiting strategy still assumes people will come to you, you're competing for a shrinking slice of an already-cautious market.

What This Means If You're the One Considering a Move

If you're a job seeker weighing whether to stay put, I'd ask you three questions before you decide fear is the smart choice:

Has your compensation actually kept pace, or have you just stopped checking? The insurance labor market has pockets of real wage growth right now, particularly in specialty underwriting, actuarial, and certain claims specialties. If it's been a while since you benchmarked yourself, do that before you assume staying is the financially conservative move. Sometimes staying is the riskier bet.

Is your hesitation about the market, or about the process? Be honest with yourself here. If you'd take the right opportunity tomorrow but you're avoiding it because interviewing feels like a hassle, that's not risk-aversion, that's inertia, and it's worth naming as such.

What does your role look like in eighteen months if nothing changes? Insurance carriers and agencies are moving through real structural shifts right now, automation in underwriting and claims, continued consolidation, shifting appetite in certain lines. If you can't answer with confidence that your seat looks the same or better in eighteen months, staying "safe" may not be safe at all.

The Bottom Line

Job hugging isn't irrational, and I'm not going to tell you the answer is to job-hop your way through an uncertain economy just to prove a point. But there's a real difference between choosing to stay and being afraid to leave, and that difference matters for your career if you're the one staying, and for your retention strategy if you're the one hoping they will.

The market will loosen again. It always does. The people who come out ahead won't be the ones who panicked and left everything for the first offer that came along. They'll be the ones who used this

quieter period to actually get clear on which kind of staying they're doing and who kept themselves ready to move the moment staying stopped making sense.

Most people plan their vacations better than their careers. Don’t be that person.

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