New York Insurance Association (NYIA) Vice President Cassandra Anderson provides insights into the challenges and opportunities facing New York insurers, including consumer needs, technology, and emerging regulatory and legislative issues. Ms. Anderson believes among the biggest issues facing companies are ever-changing and diverse consumer needs, particularly in a highly regulated environment where change can be slow. Insurtech, including innovations in …

Insurance Information Institute (III) Chief Administrative Officer Laura Favinger shares her thoughts on major issues facing the U.S. insurance industry, including insurer and policyholder resilience, technology and cyber risk, the industry’s talent gap and global economic and political upheaval. For insurance customer, including homeowners and renters, Ms. Favinger addresses the need to ensure proper insurance coverage, “the right types, the …

National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) President and CEO Chuck Chamness shared his thoughts on recent legislative successes and challenges during the recent NAMIC’s Annual Convention in National Harbor, MD. Mr. Chamness highlighted the Disaster Recovery and Reform Act (DRRA), signed into law in 2018, as a significant legislative success benefitting insurance companies and the members they serve. DRRA, …

According to Re-Sure co-founder and CEO Gautham Pedditbhotla, consumers are looking for products that “suit their lifestyle”, such as usage-based insurance (UBI). He suggests consumers who do not own assets are not getting the coverage they need from traditional insurance products. Carriers are looking to offset losses in revenue due to the reduction in “asset ownership.” Opportunities are plentiful, depending …

Connecticut Insurance Commissioner Andrew Mais discusses the challenges and opportunities facing the insurance industry. While products like Long Term Care pose issues for the market, it is technology having the biggest impact on the industry.  He admits the “industry needs to change” fast enough to keep up. Both regulators and regulated need to adopt the new technologies available to benefits consumers …

In a world moving quickly, property casualty insurers need to keep their products up-to-date in a timely way, while taking advantage of new technologies used to deliver them. According to Mark Brannon, a Principal at Merlinos & Associates, keeping up with the competition and other changes in the marketplace is a challenge. Many carriers are partnering with companies with advanced …

According to Andrew Peet, Head of Operations at 360Globalnet, claims management and the insurance industry as a whole need to move with a “sense of urgency” to cut costs from the claims process while increasing satisfaction among policyholder and claimants.  The use of technology to create efficiency in the end-to-end claims process depends on the user’s ability to “think strategically” …

Chuck Chamness, CEO of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC), discusses the challenges of working with a new Congress. He notes that there several major issues to address with the House Financial Services Committee, Senate Banking and the Trump Administration such as the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and the Terror Risk Insurance Act (TRIA). Mr. Chamness points …

In this edition of “Focus”, WRIN.tv looks at trends in “Claims Management with Rohit Verma, Global Chief Operating Officer of Crawford & Company, where the process is tailored to the needs of industries using a combination of technology and people on the ground. At the January 1 renewals, insurance companies did not see much difference in the rates they were …

The uptick in GDP has had a positive impact on the insurance industry, according to Laura Favinger, Chief Administrative Officer for the Insurance Information Institute (III). In the first half of 2018, insurance carriers nearly doubled their net income over the same period in 2017. The III sees exposures broadening a bit due to business development, consumer consumption and construction, …

The biggest issues facing reinsurance buyers today are growth, expense management and capital efficiency, according to Mike Schnur, a Partner at TigerRisk. Carriers are focused on growing profitably through new product lines, new teams, as well as mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Carriers feel that there are costs that can be reduced to reduce expense ratios. More and more carriers are …

Cyber risk and insurance continue to evolve, but the insurtech explosion is the real news at the moment, according to Gavin Souter, Editor of Business Insurance. Like all things related to technology, cyber insurance is evolving rapidly. Insurers and brokers are keen to sell cyber policies, but commercial buyers do not believe the insurance offered is enough to cover their …

Andrea Keenen, Senior Managing Director and Head of Industry Relations at A.M. Best Company, shares her thoughts on the “protection gap”, technology, and the impact of economic growth on insurance. The “protection gap” exists around the world, including the United States. Many people are simply not buying the insurance they need. She notes that governments around the work and the …

BriteCore CEO and Founder Phil Reynolds provides insights into the risks, challenges and opportunities affecting the changing insurance market due in large part to data. He says many insurers simply so not understand what their data means. The data collected on policies, claims, losses and consumer behaviors is a gold mine, and most don’t even know it. He notes that …

Kimberly Muccia, a Financial Analyst at A.M. Best Company, comments on the impact of catastrophic losses on the financial strength of insurers. Among the catastrophes affecting the auto and homeowner lines of business in 2018 were hurricanes and wildfires, resulting in about $17 billion for the Mutual Insurance segment alone. Despite the losses, Mutuals posted approximately a 6 percent increase …

Craig Bedell, Global Insurance Industry Executive at IBM, sees many challenges facing the insurance industry, including the buying habits of personal lines or commercial lines customers. New data and technologies are mitigating, but sometimes increasing risks faced by consumers. Security and privacy surrounding risk information is also important for insurers. Even more basic, according to Mr. Bedell, is the changing …

Chuck Chamness, President and CEO of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) admits insurance is a challenging business, and it’s changing rapidly. Among the contributing challenges facing the industry is technology, which is increasing the speed of change. The talent gap presents issues for companies looking to replace retiring workers while attracting a new generation of professionals. He …

Autonomous vehicles will have a huge impact on the personal insurance industry. Automation, robotics and the potential for on-shoring of manufacturing could have a major impact in the commercial insurance space. That, according to Kevin Surace, renowned American technology innovator, speaker, creator of a AI Based Software QA platform, and Inc. Magazine’s 2009 entrepreneur of the Year. He adds that …

Regulation and technology are the biggest challenges facing insurers today. That, according to Fred Karlinsky, Co-Chair of the Insurance Regulatory and Transactions Practice Group at Greenberg Traurig. On the regulatory front, Mr. Karlinsky notes a large amount of regulation affecting carriers at the federal and State level, as well as internationally at the IIAS (International Association of Insurance Supervisors). He …

Attracting talent remains biggest challenge for insurers. According to Matt Masher, EVP and COO at A.M. Best, the need for talent is greatest in the information technology (IT) area. The industry has done a lot to attract underwriting and claims professionals. But attracting the industry struggles in attracting IT talent needed to deal with insurtech issues, efficiencies in distribution and …