Throwback Thursday: Insurers returning from war look for work

22 September 1945: War heroes hunt for jobs

Post’s classified advertisements page featured plenty of army, navy and airforce members seeking to return to the insurance industry.

Adverts include the following:

• Appointment wanted. Army Captain, age 30, married, ACII, and part FCII, release due December, experienced in all branches of insurance both with tariff office and brokers, desires appointment in managerial or equivalent responsible position within company or brokers.
• Naval staff officer, aged 36, shortly demobilising, seeks permanent executive or administrative post in London/Surrey with underwriters, brokers, financial or commercial concern. Extensive “inside” and “outside” experience of all aspects insurances, mortgages, business organisation, properties, investments. Conscientious, hard worker, determined to progress. Capital investment considered.
• RAF Technical Officer, aged 34, seeks appointment as aircraft crash damage surveyor. 18 years’ experience of all types of aircraft. Last eight years inspecting and surveying crash and accident damage. Self-confident, energetic, not afraid of hard work. Release end October.

Elsewhere in the issue, Cornhill Insurance Company ran an advertisement stating: “Demobilisation should be the reward, not the penalty, of victory. It may be easier to fit a man with a civilian suit than a civilian job, but it is not so much getting out of uniform, as getting back into harness, that turns a soldier into a citizen.”