Our latest installment of the AAIS Webinar Series featuring AAIS Partner, OneShield, covered how carriers can effectively leverage and transform core system data into actionable insights to strengthen business decisions and policy claims management. Speakers explored the valuable data types within core systems such as policy, claims, and customer interactions, techniques for extracting and processing this data, and real-world examples demonstrating the impact of these insights. They also discussed the shift from static reports to dynamic data visualization and offered tips for identifying key insights critical for various stakeholders, including underwriters and claims managers. John Kadous, Vice President of Products at AAIS, and John Dunn, Vice President of Sales at OneShield led the discussion with Travis Mayfield, Reporting Product Manager at OneShield.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the underwriting process, offering unprecedented opportunities for efficiency and accuracy in the insurance industry. In this interview with AAIS Partner, Cogitate, we explored how AI is promising a new era in data interpretation and utilization. Jacqueline Schaendorf, CPCU, Co-Founder of Cogitate and President and CEO of Insurance House, discussed the potential of predictive modeling in underwriting and claims processes, significant data challenges faced by carriers, and innovative solutions offered by Cogitate.

In the construction industry, insurance plays a crucial role in protecting assets and personnel. Current construction industry challenges are impacting insurance, driving the need for insurers to innovate to reduce costs, ensure data security, and stay competitive. Watch part two of our two-part interview series with AAIS Partner, ValueMomentum, to hear from Anand Rajaraman, Vice President of Product Management at OwlSurance Technologies.

A staggering number of billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events have rocked the United States in 2023. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported in early September that 23 events with losses exceeding $1 billion each had hit the country last year. That marked the most in a calendar year in more than four decades of record-keeping.

Catastrophes, higher building costs, and inflation are all impacting commercial underwriting performance and insurer profitability. Proper portfolio valuation is becoming exponentially important as the reinsurance market tightens. So, how can insurance companies better manage their books of business now and into an uncertain future? The answer is rooted in addressing valuation issues by tapping third-party vendors. The answer is tied to partnering with a robust digital platform provider. The answer is collaboration.

In the past, it was easy for insurers to dismiss data as untrustworthy because they didn’t want to invest in it. Now, third-party vendors present necessary advances that help to paint the bigger picture. Platforms like OneShield are the glue that brings these tools together. And, not just for underwriting purposes. In the commercial lines business, customers are generally good risk management partners. OneShield and its customers have seen tremendous engagement with agents and policyholders who want to proactively manage risk. Failing to enable that is a missed opportunity.

For this Advisory Report, AAIS spoke with its President and CEO, Werner Kruck. He discussed the biggest market challenges and how to address them with data, a better approach to the “data problem,” how AAIS is supporting its Members, and his outlook on AAIS moving forward. 

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.

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.