Most of the workers in this group are distributed according to the regional distribution of the entire workforce. The age distribution for this group is close to the all-occupation average, except in the case of workers aged 15 to 24 for whom representation in this occupation is lower. This is a large occupational group, made up of about 6,360 workers in B.C. in 1998. Employment growth of these professionals is driven by the finance, insurance and real estate industry. Changes in technology and sales techniques suggest that employment of agents and brokers will not keep pace with the rising level of insurance sales.
Agents now use computers to access an abundance of information on potential clients.
This ease of access to information increasingly allows agents to save time and money by carefully crafting individually tailored plans. Consequently agents will be able to handle a greater volume of sales. The trend toward agents selling a variety of products, including self-insurance and group policies, will also cause employment to rise more slowly than the volume of insurance sales. Expert systems will be used increasingly in the insurance industry, and computerized telecommunications will link brokerages to insurance firms. The numbers of potential customers looking up insurance offers on the Internet are increasing.