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:

Regulatory-driven statistical reporting was first established for the insurance industry by the NAIC Property & Casualty Model Rating Law some 70 years ago. And the practices and procedures that underpin insurer statistical reporting have changed little in the decades since. Now, however, statistical reporting is being modernized with the development of the open Insurance Data Link (openIDL). Dina Burgess, Manager of Enterprise Risk Applications at AAIS, talks about the need for this change and the new ease, efficiency and accuracy that characterizes modern regulatory reporting.

The auto industry is fueling up for new technology down the road. Fully autonomous vehicles and advanced crash-data analysis will all impact not only how the industry operates, but how it is insured as well.

Robots – once the subjects of science fiction books, movies and TV programs – are now real-life partners involved in our daily lives in many ways.

Robotic applications are cropping up everywhere to replace an assortment of jobs that
have been performed by humans for decades. Often times, they’re designed to perform a very specific task, allowing them to deliver enhanced productivity, reduced operating costs and decreased error rates. They can be found in various locations and industries, completing repetitive tasks such as assembling orders in a warehouse, harvesting crops on a farm and even preparing meals at a fast-food restaurant.

Earlier this year, AAIS surveyed insurance carriers to better understand where they believe the auto insurance market is heading and the challenges associated with the auto technology evolution. After analyzing the responses, the results were clear: change is coming, and the opportunities for AAIS to help Members stay ahead of the curve are great.

Shared mobility services are not only growing, they also are expanding in scope. Among these trends is the significant increase in vehicle sharing programs. A recent Frost & Sullivan report noted that approximately 7 million users were sharing roughly 112,000 vehicles in 2015 in the United States alone. These numbers are expected to grow to over 36 million users and 427,000 vehicles by 2025. Market revenues are predicted to increase to more than $16 billion within the next five to ten years.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus is credited with coining the phrase "the only constant is change". Odds are he wasn’t predicting the current state of auto insurance, but those words ring true today as we look at this ever-changing marketplace. Lately there has been a lot of discussion about auto insurance, and varied opinions around the future of the largest line of P&C business. Nobody knows exactly what the auto insurance market will look like in 20 to 30 years, but it will be vastly different than it is today. AAIS Auto Product Manager Casey Brewer outlines the forces currently reshaping the market. Following are excerpts that summarize "The Trifecta of Disruptive Trends" affecting the Personal Auto Insurance market.