Karen Gittings, senior corporate benefits consultant at Titan Wealth Planning, speaks to Health & Protection about retiring this spring after almost 50 years in the sector.
A career that began with a four week data entry assignment and took her across the employee benefits sector for almost half a century will finally end in April as Gittings formally retires.
Gittings discusses why now was the right time to depart, her career highlights, a case where she managed to get an insurer to rethink their decision to deny a worker cover and why she’ll miss her work with Grid and her ‘work son’.
Now is the time
“My husband retired three years ago,” Gittings tells Health & Protection.
“All of my close friends have already retired. I’m past my state pension age, so I just think it’s time really.
“I want to do lots of travelling, spend time with my family and grandchildren, so that’s the reason.”
While Gittings is grateful for her long career, the benefits sector was never the plan from the outset.
“I feel fortunate to have fallen into a career in benefits,” Gittings continues.
“Like most people I know, it was completely accidental. I joined Unum in the late 1970s to do four weeks’ data entry and left them 18 years later as a consultant.
“My whole career’s been a highlight. I’ve enjoyed every bit of it and consider myself very fortunate to have been involved in it.”
Career highlights
Although Gittings considers being shortlisted for and winning awards as career highlights, she adds she always regards wins for clients as big achievements and cites one such example.
“One of my clients when we won them was insured with a Lloyds Insurer which doesn’t look at group risk as a long-term insurance product and therefore can cancel the membership at any time,” Gittings continues.
“A main contact there was the HR manager who sadly died of cancer and the insurer declined the claim because they said the manager wasn’t at work.
“Actually he was, and we fought it for a year. I eventually got a letter from his GP advising him he should stop working and that was two days before he died.
“So we could prove that he was actively at work and we got the claim paid.
“It was such a good feeling to be able to tell his partner that we’d won the case and they would be getting some benefit.”
Missing Grid and ‘work son’
In terms of what she will miss about the sector, Gittings points to her work with trade body Group Risk Development (Grid) and her ‘work son’.
“I’ll miss Grid,” Gittings continues.
“There is such a brilliant load of people at Grid that give all of their time and expertise to make the industry a better place, so I’ll really miss my involvement with them. I’m heavily involved – I sit on the Raising the Profile group and so I’ll definitely miss that.
“I’ll also miss my ‘work son’ Adam Walsh, who used to be my client support. I’ve trained him and mentored him right up until now and he’s just been made a consultant and he’s doing a brilliant job.
“I will miss Adam, though I think we’ll keep in touch on a personal level.”
What’s next
As for what’s next, Gittings adds she would like to keep in touch with group risk in some way.
“I’ve thought about whether I may be needed to be on the judging panel for some of the awards, but you’ll definitely find me somewhere on a beach in Greece.
“I love travel and Greece and spending time with my family really.”