LCP has completed a hat trick of diversity and inclusion (D&I) excellence awards after taking the InsuranceERM title for the third consecutive year.
The UK actuarial consultancy stresses D&I is core to its business strategy and the previous 12 months has seen this bear more fruit. This has included 33% of its new partners promoted on 1 April 2021 being women, and 83% of its employees noting positive D&I progress in a recent firm-wide survey.
LCP also has representation on several external boards including Link, the LGBTQ+ insurance network, and has supported the #10,000 black interns initiative.
Catherine Drummond, a partner in LCP's insurance consulting practice, says despite the third D&I successive title, work in this area is "never done".
"We know the world is changing, people are always changing and there's always new things to learn, improvements to make to make sure we're keeping pace with developments."
She adds the key to success is to ensure D&I is not viewed as a "tick box" exercise.
"We don't do it (D&I) because everyone says it's a good thing to do, we do it because it matters.
"We have networks, we run events and D&I runs into people policies, feeds into appraisals and we have expectations around people to support D&I."
The past 12 months has also seen increased focus on D&I from the UK's main financial regulators. In July 2021, the Financial Conduct Authority, Prudential Regulation Authority and Bank of England launched a discussion paper seeking industry feedback on policy options designed to improve D&I in the financial services sector.
Drummond says this development has been a very "helpful force" and regulatory input has led to action in other areas previously.
"For example, many people recognised the issues around climate change a long time ago, but were slow to act and we've seen a lot more action when regulators joined the conversation to add their expectations for firms.
"I'm expecting a similar thing to happen (on D&I) and more to come as that momentum builds."
Drummond says a greater understanding of data is required to progress D&I.
"It's really hard for us to know how we're doing as an industry if we can't objectively measure success. Data collection is still a very sensitive area and one where we need to do more to create an environment where people understand where data is so important, and secondly, feel comfortable with sharing it in terms of their own diversity metrics."
