Insurers keep saying they’re not cutting staff. The payroll data tells a different story

And yet property-casualty industry headcount grew just 0.81% between January 2025 and January 2026, according to that same study, well short of the 1.42% growth carriers had told researchers to expect. Involuntary turnover, meanwhile, ticked up 0.6 percentage points year over year. So carriers keep telling pollsters they plan to hold the line on staffing, and the actual numbers keep coming in lighter than promised.