Automation is now the most common reason insurers give for planned job cuts, the industry's own labour study finds, as US insurance employment falls for an eleventh month

The Jacobson Group and Aon's third-quarter 2026 Insurance Labor Market Study, published on 24 August, found that among the insurers planning to reduce staff in the next 12 months, "automation remains the primary reason", ahead of overstaffing and reorganisation. The survey is not a picture of an industry in retreat: 49 percent of carriers expect to add staff over the year and 89 percent plan to add or hold, with technology, underwriting and claims the hardest roles to fill. But the share planning to grow is four points lower than a year earlier, and the 11 percent planning cuts now put automation first. The government's numbers point the same way. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' September report, released on 2 October, showed insurance carriers and related businesses down about 90,000 jobs since financial-activities employment peaked in May 2025, with the sector near 2.93 million and in its eleventh straight monthly decline, according to trade reporting on the release. The one named employer in the trade's coverage, the brokerage Acrisure, told staff in May that it would cut 2,250 roles, about 11 percent of its workforce, because "advances in technology, AI, and digital platforms are fundamentally changing how businesses operate"; that event is already recorded on this site. What the Jacobson study adds is the sector-wide version: when insurers plan to shrink, automation is now the reason they give most.