Executive Summary

The purpose of this study assessed the analysis of market surveys within the insurance industry,

to determine the external competitiveness of the organizations based on its compensation

packages. This allowed students an opportunity to examine a company, determine its benchmark

jobs and select comparator organizations within the industry and outline its pay and benefits

structure. The organization, the individual and the task/ job was studied to gain an insight on the

topic which provided the basis for more in depth study of the company and its practices. Both

qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection were utilized to gather the relevant data

required for analysis.

A compensation system allows organizations to buy skills which are converted to value, both

intrinsic and extrinsic (motivators). It should be aligned with the overall corporate objectives of

the organization and is a mosaic of strategic HR. Companies aim to attract and retain talent and

skills to deal with the current gaps in performance and in anticipation of future needs to remain

sustainably competitive. It was found that the insurance industry is highly competitive, and pay

and benefits are the tools used to attract and retain employees who are the most valued assets to

the company. For this reason, it was extremely difficult to obtain such highly confidential

information that differentiates each company from the other. Though the organizations used a

different nomenclature to determine its pay structure, pay remained the backbone of external

competitiveness within the industry. Conclusively, compensation is a primary motivator for

employees. It is one of the fastest changing fields in Human Resources, and thus, companies

continue to explore various ways of rewarding employees for performance to achieve overall

growth and advancement as to preserve its competitive advantage within the industry.