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By "background mechanics", I assume you mean company culture and/or politicking?
We have a rotation program where I'm at, allowing you to try out other areas of interest on a short term assignment. It's most often used by staff in a project lull to cover medical leave, parenting leave, etc, in another area. Even if it doesn't immediately lead to something you still can build your network.
My advice if you feel stuck and management isn't listening to your thoughts to start looking to leave for another company that does.
Its about who you know not what you know. I can totally relate.
In my experience at two insurance companies, I’ve seen many people pivot from claims to other departments. Internal Audit is a good department to transition to where you will get a company wide view.. and could then transition to any department based on your experience / networking during your audits.
Not exactly the same as you but moved from Accounting (first post-grad role) to Operations, had to join a new company to do so but within this company I’ve now moved from Ops to the PMO. We also had another person in Ops transfer to Performance Management and an IT guy transferred to Ops. I think if you can identify transferable skills you can make an argument to transfer but like others have said, your company may not be progressive in that way so you might just have to look for a new job in the department you want at another company.
I feel like claims is such an undesirable department, so companies will do all they can to keep people in those areas. I experienced something similar. I was so burned out with writing claims and dealing with customers, but I wanted to stay with my company. When I expressed my desire to pivot into another department, they practically forced me to stay in claims. Ultimately, I chose to part ways with the company
Once in Claims, you're stuck there. Yes, it's miserable. Claims-IT sucks really bad. Stuck here. :(
From claims analyst to HR would be an unusual move that most companies regardless of would be hesitant to allow. Most companies hire HR personnel with an HR background and experience or education. The same is true with finance. I would guess if you had an accounting degree it would make sense to you and possibly the company. It’s not always about who you know or what you want to do but who is is in the candidate pool and do they bring better qualifications to the position other than time at the company.
I could definitely see a move to underwriting or a similar track but to attempt to go in a totally different direction would be a hard sell
I was a claims examiner prior to moving carriers and into an Underwriting role. The carrier I worked claims for would have never considered me for an UW role. Claims spots are hard to fill with good people for the reasons you want to leave so they want to keep you.
My experience in UW has been that when someone isn’t a fit but a good employee they work to find a spot in the company to retain them. I think that easy movement between departments is much more common in the non customer facing roles.
I was lucky that I could move out and up but I had all the same feelings when trying to move out of claims within the same company.
I started in claims and worked my way up. But I’ve seen people in sales, customer service and subrogation move to claims or claims move to subrogation after they feel like they’re not a good fit for their position. The company I’m at does have a management program where the employees in that program are rotated through all departments before they are finalized into their department and work through all the roles to understand the responsibilities/job duties for each role. But those would be the only people that would understand what it’s like to be rotated between all the departments before they pick which dept they’d want to go with. It’s kinda hard since you read the job description, apply, get the job and it’s not as expected but it wasn’t like you got to rotate through all the depts.
I worked in claims at a couple of carriers, and I think it varies widely by company. The last place I worked - Hiscox - was super supportive of transitioning to other departments. They call it spiderwebbing and have whole programs built to support people interested in switching roles. I'd say in the years I worked there I saw 10-12 people move from claims to other departments.
The other place I worked was a more traditional New England style insurer, and people had a hard time moving from one claims team to another, let alone a different department altogether.
So it definitely depends on where you're at.