Blue Cross NC Scholarship Program Aims to Diversify Health Insurance Industry

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (Blue Cross NC) and two partners are forging a career pathway for local students to enter the health insurance industry and other insurance industries.

The payer will partner with Forsyth Technical Community College and Goodwill Industries to boost the diversity of the insurance workplace.

“Improving the health of all North Carolinians means we must ensure diversity, equity and inclusion are woven into how we attract, serve and retain our members and engage with our communities,” said Roy Watson, vice president of group segment and state health plan for Blue Cross NC.

“Through this pipeline program and scholarship opportunity, we’re working to create an insurance salesforce that’s as diverse as our state, which will ultimately provide the opportunity for all North Carolinians to be healthier.”

The partners will create the Forsyth Tech Pre-licensing Insurance Program which will enable students to start their journey toward becoming an insurance licensee in accordance with the North Carolina Department of Insurance.

Blue Cross NC’s role is to offer scholarships for a certain number of students in the program. The scholarships will cover not only the cost of awardees’ courses, but also exam fees and the North Carolina Department of Insurance fees. At the end of the course, participants will be qualified to take the North Carolina Department of Insurance exam which, upon passing, confers the authority to sell insurance in the state.

The goal is to lower the cost barrier for students to train in the insurance fields and, more specifically, to open opportunities up to a traditionally disadvantaged or unreached set of students in order to create a more diverse workforce.

The program is designed to prepare students for a broader range of employment opportunities those in health insurance alone.

Participants engage in a six-week long program. The courses address human resource development, life insurance, and more. For Blue Cross NC awardees, will be required to take three pre-licensing courses along with the human resource development courses.

Program participants will have access to networking and interviewing training and other job search and employment support.

In an effort to extend more opportunities to individuals who are, historically, less likely to enter the health insurance industry, the scholarships are only available for minorities and women.

“This strategic partnership between Forsyth Tech and Blue Cross NC will equip people in our region for success in the insurance industry, including those who have been historically underrepresented in the industry,” said Alan Murdock, senior vice president of economic and workforce development at Forsyth Tech.

“The initiative is an extension of our decades-long workforce training relationship with Goodwill, which has impacted thousands of people seeking to enhance their skills and grow their career opportunities.”

The program’s first cohort starts on November 1, 2022 and runs through December 9, 2022. Enrollment remains open until October 31, 2022.

Similarly, other payers have introduced programs that strive to use job creation and economic stimulants to improve healthcare diversity.

For example, Independence Health Group (Independence) found that a decades-old program created over 1,700 jobs and contributed $375 million to the national economy in 2018. The program specifically strove to partner with minority-owned and woman-owned businesses.

Blue Shield of California supported an internship designed to improve diversity in the behavioral and mental healthcare workforce. The Health Career Connection (HCC) offered underrepresented young adults the opportunity to access internships that would broaden their networks and give them critical experiences.

Payers have collaborated with universities and academic institutions to resolve a number of healthcare industry challenges. For example, Humana worked with the University of Louisville to address social determinants of health and health equity in Louisville.

Partnerships like these may prove essential for health equity and diversification efforts in the healthcare industry.