The insurance industry is hardly the pin-up sector for diversity and inclusion, but it is working to change things, says Lloyd's general representative in Australia, Chris Mackinnon.
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However, the biggest shift in addressing unconscious bias needs to come from women themselves.
"Sometimes, it's their [women's] own unconscious bias - where they're not applying for positions or putting themselves forward," he said.
Men were more likely to challenge for jobs, he said, even when their expertise was not a direct match. He encouraged women to do the same, and for men in positions of power to rethink the way they hired.
Lloyd's of London is not a publicly listed Australian company, but underwrites a chunk of business for Australia's general insurance market.
Mr Mackinnon also heads the Dive In 2017 organising committee. The Dive In Festival for Diversity & Inclusion, an initiative of Lloyd's, began in London two years ago and has now spread to 17 cities globally, including Melbourne, Sydney and Perth.
Mr Mackinnon said the festival, taking place now, would expose 60,000 brokers and insurers across Australia to the theme of unconscious bias, which was crucial in a "white, Anglo-Saxon, male-dominated environment".
"In the past few years, there's been proactive attention to bring diversity to the [Lloyd's] business," he said. "Of a nine-person board, there's four women."
This includes chief executive Inga Beale, chief operating officer Shirine Khoury-Haj, chief risk officer Hilary Weaver and human resources director Annette Andrews.
"We now want to get at least 40 per cent women across the [Lloyd's] senior management population within the next few years," he said. "There's clearly some work to do."
In Australia, the diversity picture is more dire.
Australia's finance and insurance sector has the largest gender pay gap in the nation, according to Workplace Gender Equality Agency data.
In this sector, women barely make senior leadership positions and those employed full-time can expect to earn on average about $30,000, or 26 per cent, less each year in base salary than men in the same industry.
This gap increases to more than $52,000, or 33 per cent, when taking into account additional remuneration including superannuation, bonuses and other discretionary pay.
Mr Mackinnon is against AICD chairwoman Elizabeth Proust's call on Tuesday to discuss moving to mandated quotas.
"I'm not a believer in quotas - I am a believer in the right person for the job," he said. "But I am cognisant of the fact that it's not easy to achieve because of unconscious bias."
A recent Insurance Industry Diversity & Inclusion Survey of 2500 people in the local industry found one in four did not know whether their company executives "showed commitment" to diversity and inclusion, and almost one in five were not sure whether they were equipped to manage such issues in the workplace.
