One of the biggest risks facing the risk management and insurance industry was summed up very well yesterday by Joanne Wojcik (@BusInsJWojcik) on Twitter: There is “only one risk manager entering the profession for every five who are retiring.”

The last decade has seen a tremendous growth of the discipline from an intellectual standpoint. What was formerly little more than insurance buying is now closer than ever to becoming ingrained into strategic business planning. After 9/11 and Enron and Katrina and H1N1 and Lehman Brothers and Haiti and Japan, the concept of risk management is now almost mainstream.

Given this, it is somewhat surprising and certainly not helpful for the industry that it is losing many more people than it is recruiting. And while the one-to-five rate cited above by Wojcik is troubling for risk management, the same problem exists in insurance, a sector that may have even greater trouble if it can’t attract more young talent.

To their credit, both higher education and the insurance sector are now making concerted efforts to stem the tide and encourage an influx of talent into the market.

Here’s another tweet from Joanne Wojcik of BI.

University of Colorado-Denver to launch risk management curriculum, perhaps pumping new blood into the industry!#RIMS2011

And here’s a comment on Gallagher’s efforts from IRMI President Jack P. Gibson (@UGAJack)

Gallagher has 150 student summer interns as part of its effort to bring young people into the business says CEO Pat Gallagher @ #RIMS2011.

This morning, I also got the chance to speak about all these matters with Russ Quilley, the Calgary-based national broking director for Aon, who served on the RIMS 2011 panel “Recruiting and Retaining Risk Management Talent for the Millennium” yesterday. He has been integral in helping Aon acquire those “millennial generation” employees that will eventually replace those entering retirement and has a much more positive outlook on the situation than I do.

Part of this is because he seems to think his company is on the vanguard of these efforts. And another key reason he sees this as much of an opportunity as a concern is due to the energy, ambition and capabilities he is seeing from those students he helps integrate into his company. Aon plucks Canadian interns and recent graduates for a program it calls The Wheel. This consists of an 18-month rotation in which students complete three six-month stints in different parts of the company. The first gets their feet wet. The second tries to place them somewhere aligned with their skill set. After this, their performance is evaluated, and the broker moves them onto a third rotation during which they learn from their managers as well as independent mentors who try to teach them all about the industry.

The most encouraging aspect for Quilley is how technological savvy this generation is. He is routinely impressed with how this group can find new solutions to problems and not just rely on how things have been done in the past. And he believes this technological and cultural influence will be invaluable to making his firm more efficient in the future.

“It is really interesting to see a group that sees no hurdles,” said Quilley. “I like to challenge the status quo and they like to challenge the status quo.”

Another positive benefit is that these millennials will be very effective dealing with customers in the future. “Ten years from now they’re going to be our mid-level [brokers and managers],” said Quilley. “But they’re also going to be our clients. And this group will able to talk to clients and be very well-versed in their demands.”

This stuff is all great, and many other companies and universities are making similar efforts. Even so, there are not enough young, future insurers and brokers being churned out by academia, according to Quilley.

“I still don’t think there are enough of them coming through,” said Quilley. “If you look at the programs, there’s a 90% hiring rate. Not a lot of industries have levels that high. That’s a great indication that there aren’t enough to meet industry demand.”

To me, the whole industrywide effort to recruit young talent feels a little bit like trying to create energy independence in the United States by starting to drill offshore today; it sounds helpful and some day it certainly may be — but it’s going to be a long time, we’re talking at least a decade, before the work being done now will pay off. And considering that the talent that insurers and brokers are losing consists of graybeards with perhaps 20 or more years of experience in risk and insurance, even if the industry can get closer to a one-out/one-in ratio, it’s still not exactly an even trade when you replace a retiring, battle-worn executive who has been through multiple market cycles with an eager, 22-year-old who has a bachelor’s degree in actuarial science, an iPhone and a smile. That fledgling risk manager or future underwriter can one day be just as knowledgable and wise as the VP she is replacing, but it takes time. Experience can’t be taught and all that.

Frankly, the insurance industry is simply late to the game.

This is a major strategic risk for many companies — and one they have known about for years — yet many have still failed to really start addressing it seriously until now. The financial crisis and economic slowdown didn’t help. Hiring lagged, and now there must be a renewed urgency for insurers to find, train and retain young talent.

“I don’t think [the insurance industry has] the reputation among that young group that you can have an interesting career in insurance,” said Quilley. “We need to do a better job promoting that. You have to be aware of the demographics of your staff and have a plan in place. And starting now is key.”

With all the great institutions now educating the youth of America about risk and insurance, there is no doubt that the future of the industry is in good hands.

But the hand-off of the baton might be a little sloppy.

Let’s just hope it doesn’t get dropped.

If the sprinters in this photo were industries, insurance would be from Poland.