At the 2022 NAMIC Annual Convention, AAIS interviewed Senior Vice President of e2Value Skip Coan about major insurance industry trends, their impacts, and his advice for mutual insurers.

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.

Dr. Matt Hinds-Aldrich, Senior Risk Strategy Lead at AAIS and fire peril subject matter expert, recently joined Tom Louis from First Due to discuss why the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) still matters and why it needs to improve to meets the needs of the 21^st century fire service. Watch the entire discussion here:

Everyone has probably heard the cliché “Data is an Asset.” But how do we break it down pragmatically into an actionable backlog and apply some “data-driven metrics” toward attributing and increasing the value of data.

It’s a fascinating and challenging paradigm – to increase the value of data. Like many other assets, the value is typically not intrinsic; it must be harnessed. It requires a process of extraction, enrichment, polishing, and packaging. Even then, the value realization is not obvious or guaranteed, until the consumer engages with it. Think of diamonds. They go through an extensive process from rock to finished product, and still only possess value once purchased by a consumer at a defined market rate.

Connecticut Insurance Commissioner Andrew Mais and AAIS VP of Government Affairs, Legal and Compliance, Robin Westcott, recently appeared on AM Best TV to discuss our successful openIDL Proof of Concept (POC) surrounding a COVID-19 Data Call, and how this revolutionary blockchain platform is paving the path for better regulatory reporting across the insurance industry. Watch the replay in full here:

Cyber security is a pressing issue. With daily advancements in technology comes the need for a game of rapid catch-up in the security sector. Every day there are new products and solutions to help protect us from this growing threat. The challenge within the insurance industry is how to underwrite this constantly evolving risk.

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.

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.

Flood insurance has long been primarily administered by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which has 5.1 million policies in force. But the landscape for flood insurance – and who needs it – is changing. This was the topic of an AM Best webinar that included Linda Jancik, AAIS Personal Lines Product Manager, Serena Garrahan, Vice President, Inland Flood Product Manager at Munich Re US, and Rob Olson, Senior Research Analyst at International Risk Management Institute (IRMI).

The AAIS Pulse newsmagazine recently featured AAIS Chief Pricing Actuary Mike Payne and Somil Jain, VP & Consulting Actuary at Lewis & Ellis Actuaries and Consultants, spotlighting forces reshaping the role of pricing actuaries.