In preparing for our August issue of AmericanAgent & Broker, for the past several weeks I've beenimmersed in the stories of almost 20 women who have achievedenviable success in the insurance industry. Their stories,backgrounds and life situations are all very different, but all ofthem share great skills and a dedication to an industry that wasn'talways that conducive to having them around.

Several of the women I spoke with have been in the industry for30 years or more. Two familiar names are Donna Pile and Sharon Emek. Both of their stories arecharacteristic of the times in which they came of age.

Donna started her career in 1977 after a divorce left her withthree small sons to support. Her dad owned an agency, and shemanaged to balance a growing career with raising her kids. “My sonswent to many a company meeting and clients' houses and stayed inthe agency with me for preschool years,” she said.

Sharon is best known as the founder of WAHVE, the work-at-home option forretired insurance professionals. Her mid-1980s entrée intoinsurance came as agencies were first beginning to adoptautomation. “Both CIGNA and Aetna gave their key agencies computerterminals. Agencies at that time had minimal management procedures,never mind an understanding of technology,” she said. “I was aconsultant to closely held companies, helping them developmanagement and technology procedures. To help them, I recognizedthat I had to learn insurance, which I did. I became a licensedinsurance broker and a CIC.”

Both remember what it was like to be the only woman in the room.“One of my carriers finally had a younger man making the calls onagency bonuses,” Donna said. “He asked why as a partner in theagency I was never at a meeting. I replied that I was neverinvited. He said nothing but when the letter came, it included myname and every letter after that included my name.”

Fast forward 40 years. Although women are still underrepresentedin the C-suite, the playing field is far more level today. Becauseit deals with the buyer, the agent/broker segment has always beenmore amenable to gender equality, which is evident in the largenumber of young female agency owners (33 percent of independentagencies have at least one woman owner, according to MadelynFlannagan, VP of education and research for IIABA). And with morewomen graduating with bachelor's and advanced degrees, the talentpool is bigger than ever.

Women today are different, too. Raised in a globallyinterconnected world where they've collaborated with the oppositesex since kindergarten, they rightfully expect a seat at thetable.

So based on the numbers—womenhold only 6 percent of top executive positions at insurers andreinsurers–yes, the glass ceiling still exists. But based onother numbers— in the U.S. in 2012, women represented 51 percent ofPhDs, 51 percent of business school applicants, 67 percent ofcollege graduates and more than 70 percent of collegevaledictorians (National Center forEducation Statistics)—it's cracking fast.