P&C CEO Pay Far Exceeds Comp for Deputies and Employees. And That’s Unlikely to Change.

The pay disparity between the CEO and other top executives is more pronounced since many insurance companies don’t have a clear No. 2, said Alan Johnson, managing director of compensation consulting firm Johnson Associates.

Many firms have senior people, but with no obvious second-in-command, there’s a bigger gap between the CEO and other senior executives. There’s also a possibility that some top-level employees make more money than an executive named in the proxy, but those figures aren’t public, Johnson added.

Pay Disparity Between the CEO and Other Employees Widens

The difference is even greater when you consider the huge gaps between the pay for median employees and the CEO… But that doesn’t mean they expect to make anything near what the CEO does. Most employees “just look at the number and say ‘$15 million, I wish I made that,'” Johnson said. They don’t expect that if the CEO had only made $13 million in a year, the extra $2 million would come to them, he added.

… Of course, there are caveats. If a company was laying off employees and freezing pay for lower-level workers and the CEO’s pay were to go up dramatically, that would hurt morale, Johnson said. “Unless the insurance company does something particularly dumb, that’s not going to be an issue.”

P&C Specialist / May 30, 2025