In this AAIS Market Report, Chair, President and CEO of Greater New York Mutual Elizabeth Heck discusses  challenges to the insurance industry in the U.S. and New York.

In this AAIS Market Report, Merchants Insurance Group President, and New York Insurance Association (NYIA) Chair, Charles Makey, discusses issues and challenges facing the U.S. and New York insurance markets, including legislation, regulation, and much more.

While the telematics capabilities that enable auto insurers to track mileage and driving behaviors continue to advance, Usage-Based Insurance (UBI) has  potentially been slow to gain traction among consumers. In keeping with our mission of working with Members to design the best possible insurance products, AAIS recently went direct to consumers to understand the reservations that may be stalling adoption of UBI products and strategies to overcome these obstacles.

In this AAIS Market Report, New York Insurance Association (NYIA) President Ellen Melchionni discusses issues and challenges facing the U.S. and New York insurance markets, legislation and regulation, and much more.

There is no understating Bob Guevara’s contributions to AAIS and the Inland Marine insurance community: He transformed thinking about inland marine risks, raising awareness with regulators and creating new rating paradigms and valuable tools and resources for AAIS Member insurers. As he looks forward to retiring after 29 years, and transitions to a consulting role, continuing to support AAIS, Bob spoke with AAIS Views.

Let’s start at the beginning. What first drew you to the insurance industry?

Bob Guevara: When I graduated from college in the 1970s the country was coming out of a recession. There was a lot of instability out there. I wanted to join an industry that would be very stable for the long haul, which led me to insurance. I’ve been in the business ever since – 15 years of inland marine underwriting and 29 at AAIS.

This is the next installment in a series of conversations with AAIS leadership to get to know them, their background, and the unique work they’re doing within AAIS to further the insurance industry. In this edition, AAIS Views spoke with Michael Payne, Chief Pricing Actuary, about his career, being creative as an actuary, the role data is playing to create better pricing models, and how AAIS is leveraging those models to deliver value to our Members.

Tell us about your background.

Michael Payne: When I was in college, I liked math, but really didn’t know what I wanted to do. Then I heard about Actuarial Science from an alum who came back to campus and gave a presentation about the career path. That’s what sparked my interest. I got an internship at Zurich and that turned into my first job out of school. I started out doing pricing at Zurich, went to SCOR Re to do reinsurance pricing, and went back to Zurich to eventually lead a pricing tools team.

One not-so-traditional role in my career was a stint I did at Sears in their Home Services unit where I was the Director of Underwriting Analysis. Basically, if you bought a refrigerator at Sears, they were going to offer you a protection plan. It was my role to figure out the prices for those protection agreements based on how likely the appliance was going to need to be repaired or even replaced.

Overall, I really like pricing. It’s prospective in nature as you try to determine what might happen in the future.

In the winter of 2018, I joined AAIS where I’ve been able to leverage my pricing experience. My role includes product development and delivering loss costs that are appropriate for the coverage being offered. Not all carriers have a large team of actuaries or loads of data, so our rating plans offer them a faster speed to market for a new line of business, or even insurtechs to get their first policies written.

On Aug. 16, at the 2021 Summer National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) National Meeting, AAIS VP of Government Affairs, Legal & Compliance, Robin Westcott, presented the results of a Proof of Concept (POC) testing whether openIDL could support a COVID-19 Business Interruption Data call issued by the NAIC.

The meeting served as the kickoff for the openIDL Regulatory Reporting Steering Committee (RRSC). Ms. Westcott provided highlights from the positive findings set out in the report published by AAIS declaring that blockchain/distributed ledger technology had passed the test enroute to even broader applications across the industry.

Following is a summary of Ms. Westcott’s presentation:

AAIS conducted a Proof of Concept (POC) using the open Insurance Data Link (openIDL) for regulatory reporting. The results demonstrated that this blockchain/distributed ledger technology can dramatically improve both the output and process of insurance regulatory reporting for insurers and regulators.

Blockchain started as a popular buzzword among techies but has since permeated across industries. In insurance, its potential is being realized as game changing. Truman Esmond, AAIS Vice President of Membership and Solutions, spoke at a recent webinar hosted by The Institutes Griffith Insurance Education Foundation on how AAIS is utilizing blockchain to support industry.

The collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo in Surfside, Florida, shocked the nation, starting a much-needed conversation about the importance of risk mitigation. As the events unfolded, we learned that the information about the significant risk of collapse was known—to some—but simply went unheeded.