The difficulty in retaining forensic engineering experts

With a shortage of labour in nearly all engineering specialties in Canada, the forensic engineering companies that insurers rely on to help investigate claims are having difficulty retaining experts.

CEP-Sintra usually does not hire engineers with less than five years experience, chief executive officer Jean-François Joubert told Canadian Underwriter Tuesday. CEP-Sintra – which investigates collisions, fires and other insured losses – was formed this past summer when CEP Forensic Inc. merged with Sintra Engineering Inc.

“When we hire new engineers, they have almost no idea of what an engineer can do, particularly in forensics,” Joubert said, adding young engineers tend not to view forensic engineering as “real engineering” because forensic engineers do not build anything.

“What we are doing is really engineering, but it’s at another level,” Joubert added.

Recruiting firm Randstad reported labour shortages this year in Canada in “virtually all” engineering disciplines.

Manufacturing and construction were among the sectors with gains in employment, Statistics Canada stated Dec. 1 in its latest labour force survey. From November, 2016 to November, 2017, the total number of workers employed in Canada in professional, scientific and technical services increased 5.5%. The increase over the same period was 3.6% in construction and 5.4% in manufacturing, Statistics Canada said.

There is currently “almost full employment in Canada right now for engineers,” Joubert said, commenting in general and not on StatsCan’s figures. “They are very hard to get.”

Statistics Canada reported Dec. 7 that enrolment in Canadian degree programs in sciences, technology, engineering, mathematics and computer sciences was 331,947 during the 2015-16 academic year, up 22.5% from 270,969 in 2010-11.

Although more engineers are graduating these days, “they are not necessarily trained in traditional areas like civil, electrical and mechanical,” Joubert said, commenting in general and not on StatsCan’s figures. “You now have them in biomedical, computer sciences and software engineering – all, alternate types of engineering that are not traditional use for an insurance company.”

And once they are hired, “there is a lot that goes into training a forensic engineer,” Joubert added. “When we lose them after three years, it’s a big expense.”

For example, forensic engineers need to write reports that can be used as evidence during a lawsuit or during mediation or arbitration, he noted.

Those reports need to be “comprehensive technically but also can be understood by laymen,” Joubert explained, adding forensic engineers are not called on to testify as much as they were up to about 15 years ago.

“When the cost of trials started to rise significantly, the insurance companies found alternate methods to resolve their litigation” such as mediation and arbitration, he said.

“Most of that conducted by lawyers, so they use our reports, but we are seldom called into those procedures,” Joubert added.

The Insurance Institute of Canada promotes careers in insurance – including loss adjusting, underwriting and risk management – on campuses, Margaret Parent, director of the professionals’ division at the IIC, told Canadian Underwriter earlier.

“I don’t know whether it’s the insurance industry’s job or our job to make [engineering opportunities in insurance] a little more well known,” Joubert said.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that CEP-Sintra does not retain engineers for more than five years instead of that the company usually does not hire engineers with less than five years experience. Canadian Underwriter apologizes for the error and any inconvenience it may have caused.