Picture this: an insurance professional with a decade of experience, strong metrics, and the respect of her peers gets offered a promotion to director.
Her first instinct isn’t excitement.
It’s terror!!
Not because the role is beyond her ability, but because she’s convinced that everyone is about to discover she’s been faking it the entire time.
This is impostor syndrome, and if you’ve spent any time leading teams in business, you’ve seen it.
You may be living it right now.
Dr. Renee Bruns explores this phenomenon in her book The Promotion That Changed Everything, and the lessons land with particular force for an industry built on technical expertise, high-stakes decision-making, and a culture where admitting uncertainty can feel career-ending.
Impostor syndrome isn’t a clinical diagnosis. It’s a pattern of thinking first identified by researchers Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978. At its core, it’s an unhealthy response to success: the persistent belief that you haven’t earned your achievements, that luck or timing got you here, and that exposure as a fraud is only a matter of time.
Dr. ValerieYoung’s research identifies five distinct types. The Perfectionist won’t submit work until it’s flawless, often missing deadlines in the process. The Superhero says yes to everything and burns out trying to prove their worth through sheer volume. The Natural Genius crumbles the moment something doesn’t come easily. The Expert needs to know everything before acting and freezes when they encounter a gap. And the Soloist refuses to ask for help, equating collaboration with inadequacy.
If you manage claims teams, underwriting desks, or operations groups, you’ve almost certainly worked alongside every one of these types. More importantly, you’ve probably lost good people because of them.
Insurance runs on measurement. Combined ratios, loss ratios, cycle times, severity averages, peer benchmarking. There is no hiding in this business. Every decision an adjuster or underwriter makes is eventually quantified, compared, and reviewed.That kind of constant evaluation creates exactly the competitive, comparison-driven environment that research links to impostor syndrome.
Add to that the industry’s deep respect for technical expertise. In claims, you’re expected to know coverage, liability, damages, and regulatory requirements across multiple jurisdictions. In underwriting, you’re expected to price risk with precision under incomplete information. The implicit message is: if you’re in this role, you should already know this. That expectation makes it incredibly difficult for professionals to admit when they’re unsure, which is exactly where impostor syndrome thrives.
The research also shows that anyone can be affected regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, or seniority. Someone at the executive level can struggle with it just as severely as a first-year adjuster. The difference is that senior leaders often have fewer peers to confide in, which deepens the isolation.
The damage from impostor syndrome goes well beyond individual stress. The research outlined in Dr. Bruns’ work shows measurable impacts on job satisfaction, career satisfaction, life satisfaction, and overall health. People with impostor syndrome procrastinate (believing they’re not qualified to start) or over-prepare (setting unrealistic standards for themselves). Both behaviors erode productivity.
But the organizational impact is what should concern insurance leaders most. When someone with impostor syndrome mentors a newer employee, they can inadvertently pass along those same patterns of self-doubt. A mentor who openly questions whether they deserved their own career success teaches their mentee to question theirs. Over time, this creates a culture of impostor syndrome, one that suppresses innovation because people are afraid to share ideas, undermines succession planning because high performers don’t believe they’re ready for the next role, and drives attrition because talented people leave before they get“caught.”
For an industry already struggling with talent retention and facing a generational knowledge transfer crisis, this is a problem hiding in plain sight.
One of the most powerful insights from the research is also the simplest: acknowledging impostor syndrome is the first step in defeating it. Simply learning the term, recognizing the patterns, and understanding that you’re not alone provides immediate relief. The research indicates that impostor syndrome rarely goes away entirely, but with the right tools and consistent practice, it can be managed to the point where it no longer controls your decisions, your career, or your team’s culture.
Dr. Bruns’ book introduces positive psychology, specifically Martin Seligman’s PERMA framework (Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, andAccomplishments), as a structured approach to reversing impostor syndrome’s effects. Over the coming weeks, this series will unpack each of those pillars and show how insurance teams can apply them practically to build more confident, resilient, and authentic organizations.
Because the insurance industry doesn’t have a talent shortage problem. It has a confidence problem. And the fix isn’t another compensation study or job board posting.It’s giving people permission to stop pretending and start leading as themselves.
This is the first article in a 12-part series exploring how positive psychology can help insurance professionals defeat impostor syndrome, based on insights from The Promotion That Changed Everything by Dr.Renee Bruns. Next week: Why Your Best Underwriter Thinks She’s Faking It.