The first female presidents of the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) and National Insurance Brokers Association (NIBA) give their views on women in the industry in this week’s Insurance News podcast.

In a working week that started with International Women’s Day, ICA’s Sue Houghton and NIBA’s Dianne Phelan told INsight that while much progress has been made, there’s a great deal still to do.

“It’s probably not been quick enough,” Ms Houghton said.

“The fact that I’m the first female [ICA] president in 2021 probably tells us that. It’s just not happened as quickly as any of us would have liked.

“But at the same time I think over 50% of the people in our industry are female. So that gives us a great opportunity to have a pipeline of leaders in the future.”

Ms Houghton is currently GM Insurance at Westpac, but will become QBE’s new local CEO in August.

Ms Phelan, who is Group Operations Manager at BJS, says that at the start of her 43-year insurance career she was often “the only woman in the room” at industry events.

“Now, it’s vastly different, so yes I think we have made huge inroads, not just in the roles but the opportunities”.

INsight, hosted by Insurance News Managing Director Andrew Silcox, features the observations of Insurance News Publisher Terry McMullan, Managing Editor John Deex, our team of journalists, and occasional guests.

This week’s episode also discusses the latest developments in the second business interruption test case, APRA’s general insurance statistics, and analysts’ views on the challenges facing new QBE Group CEO Andrew Horton.

You can find a new episode of INsight published here every Wednesday.