It’s Mainly a Man’s World at Auto Dealerships

Are women embracing careers in dealership finance and insurance?

The answer is in the nuance of the data, says Ted Kraybill, CEO of the research firm ESI Trends.

With permission from 2,200 dealerships, ESI collected and crunched payroll data for an annual dealership workforce study the National Automobile Dealers Assn. commissioned.

“In the last two years, we found that many women titled as F&I managers were in significant numbers document specialists or assistants and not the actual manager,” Kraybill says.

He notes that while 92% of dealership office and administration workers are women, females account for only 19% of F&I positions. That’s better than women in parts and service (13%), vehicle sales (9%) and sales management (4%).

The F&I number isn’t really growing, Kraybill and others says.

“Unfortunately, the number of women in F&I has held fairly steady at 10% to 15%,” says F&I trainer Ron Reahard of Reahard & Associates. “Typically in one of my F&I classes of 30 attendees, there will be between three and five women.”

The job requires long hours, says Tony Dupaquier, director-training for F&I University, a division of American Financial and Automotive Services. “It is rare to find females who want to put in that time.”

Women who endure can do well though.

“Some of the top performers in F&I are female,” Dupaquier says. “In my dealerships, when females work with males in F&I, the females’ PVR (per vehicle retailed) and sales penetration rates are usually up a tick from their counterparts.”

Women tend to be better listeners, an asset in F&I, Reahard says. “That’s very important when selling intangible products, and customers often find women to be less threatening than men.” 

Dupaquier agrees. “Given the same skills and processes in place, people prefer to deal with a female. Even males prefer to. We see the same dynamic at play in showroom sales and service advisor roles as well.”

But a pay gap persists.

“Female F&I managers tend to earn 10% less than their male counterparts,” Kraybill says. “This gap is greater at the lower end of the salary range, which shows up in the data for the document specialist/F&I assistant positions being labeled as full F&I managers in some dealerships.”