A Two-Day Agenda Packed With Revolutionary Underwriting Tactics

We’re currently recruiting speakers, so if you have any recommendations or would like to get involved please register your interest via the brochure here or contact Helen Raff at hraff@newtonmedia.co.uk 

Opening Session: Achieve customer-centric, frictionless underwriting for a competitive edge  

  • Understand your customer better through data; deploy IoT to understand risk profile and deliver personalized products that delight your customers  

  • Engage your customers in an omni-channel world to offer consistent, personalized experiences, with faster turn-around times 

  • Play your part in transforming insurance from a necessary nuisance into a lifestyle product, motivating customers to manage their own risk and boosting levels of customer intimacy  

  • Deliver a superior customer experience through automation and use AI and UX design best practices to make things easier for both your underwriting team, and your customers

  • Simplify underwriting and reduce the complexities for your customers to reap the benefits of faster onboarding and higher levels of customer satisfaction

Theme 1:  Harness Data and Automation to Drive Efficiency

Drive efficiency and profits through automation 

  • Eliminate manual work through automation, RPA, straight-through processing and smart contracts and to free up staff to focus on revenue-generating tasks: cross-selling, business development and customer retention 

  • Streamline risk assessment and move towards an automated quote/bind/place chain so you can work smarter and add true value, delivering on your customer expectations and sharpening your competitive edge

  • Speed-up the placement process:   Understand how investments in straight-through processing – particularly in the small commercial space – are driving efficiency in pricing structures and lowering costs

  • Bring down the cost of doing business through standardization: Discover how AI and Blockchain are reducing administrative and transactional costs along the insurance chain  

  • Utilize RPA, ML and Cognitive technology to create an agile efficient workforce, that can react to operational issues or opportunities in real-time and price risk more accurately leading to faster decision-making and faster processing, ultimately leading to higher profits

Harness new sources of external data and integrate into underwriting to support quicker decision-making 

  • Prioritise data sources that provide you the cleanest, most reliable and relevant data, so you spend less time re-keying data into spreadsheets, testing for quality and standardizing data 

  • Accelerate underwriting through tools like credit data, criminal history and social media so you’re not dependant on information the applicant supplies

  • Overcome a lack of 3rd party data by correlating financial data, client data and risk data, then employ insurtech and AI to reduce costs and keep clients engaged

  • Use data from satellites and drones to observe properties quickly on a granular level to save on evaluation costs and analyse loss prevention methodologies before quoting so you can spend less time researching the risk and more time reducing loss ratios

Reconcile your AI ambitions with your data 

  • Hear practical steps for launching AI in underwriting:  Evaluate how much data you need, identify opportunities to enrich the data, solve real-world problems that interface with the business and bring your workforce with you 

  • Get tips on working with specialist insurtech to harness their AI capabilities and overcome organisational inertia 

  • Go beyond AI for commoditized personal lines and explore the impact AI, such as image recognition, will have on both small and large commercial, where a lack of data continues to remain an obstacle

Theme 2:  Understand risk accurately through technology and data

Unleash AI in small commercial insurance to drive efficiencies and lower costs 

  • Discuss experimentation of new business models; online, direct to consumer, SME platforms, insurance portals and distribution platforms – and be nimble in plugging in/out of different platforms to add value 

  • Use AI led models to boost productivity by building a more efficient submission queue, ranking risks by profitability and pricing policies accurately  

  • Know when to use a machine and when the human touch is required:   Humans may be being replace in commoditized lines, but what does the future hold for AI in commercial lines, where the risks are not standardized?  

  • Deliver on customer expectations in SME space by using AI to assist with the decision-making process and reduce friction 

Unlock the value of IoT, Behavioural analytics and UBI to provide tailored cover and accurate prices 

  • Cater to your client’s needs:  Harness the power of real-time data from sensors to get a better understanding of your customers’ needs and deliver tailored, bespoke products that are priced more accurately  

  • Leverage real-time data from connected devices – like wearables - to categorize customers into a risk class, provide outcome-based services for customers, and improve the underwriting process

  • Assess the advantages of IoT to continually monitor performance in large installations and provide a rich stream of data that intersects with underwriting, resulting in better decisions, stronger resilience and minimal business interruption losses 

  • Deploy AI/ML to analyse the vast amounts of data created by the IoT and make steps towards truly dynamic pricing

Data-driven portfolio steering for competitive advantage 

  • Use rigorous portfolio management to spread risks across industries and geographies, overcome unfavourable underwriting conditions and utilize technology to optimize portfolios, and mitigate against developing risks 

  • Keep up with leading carriers and integrate advanced, real-time analytics tools and visualization tools into your portfolio management function to simulate the impact of new perils, and explore the data for hidden risks and opportunities 

  • As underwriting becomes more complex with the advent of new risks, increased automation and predictive models, how does portfolio management manage this and share insights effectively? 

  • Improve portfolio management by enhancing basic data with new external sources, like demographic information on companies, individuals, or neighbourhoods to understand your current portfolio and possible actions in the future

Ensure the accuracy of models and in a world of changing risks 

  • Decide if today’s catastrophe models are fit for purpose in the face of increased catastrophe frequency and climate change – How can you manage perils, like wildfires, when the data and models are inadequate?  

  • Select the best risks for profitability:  Deploy good judgement when declining/accepting business and continue to provide a service, even when state regulators, actuaries and data are telling you otherwise 

  • Debate the future of the vendor ecosystem and discuss the pros and cons of the incumbent’s vs new entrants in terms of accuracy of data, ability to embed into your company infrastructure – and crucially, cost 

  • Assess the role of technology, data and models as a differentiating factor to give you an edge over your competitors:  Add value to your clients, so they can mitigate risk and avoid herd mentality of writing same risks in the same space

  • Make the move towards open platforms which leverage APIs and integrate with open-source models to be more agile and reduce costs

Theme 3: Become the Underwriter of the Future

Blurred Lines and changing roles:  Explore how Actuaries, Data Scientists and Underwriters collaborate to make better pricing decisions

  • As data scientists transform into actuaries and actuaries encroach on underwriting - assisting with pricing, capital allocation and reserving on claims – where does this leave the underwriter?  

  • Transform underwriting from an art to a science: Distinguish underwriters from actuaries by becoming more data-savvy and analytical, understand actuarial methods, technical pricing and actuarial tools 

  • Speed up the evolution of your actuaries by using AI to increase competitiveness and create and instigate checks and balances

It’s not just about technology: Be more specialized, more scientific and become a custodian of data 

  • Marry interpersonal relationship skills with the demand for statistical, analytical and data engineering skills to become a more technical underwriter, confidently able to integrate an increasing amount of external data

  • Deliver deep customer insights on how to manage and avoid risks: Leverage your in-depth understanding of your clients to shift the value proposition from pure risk-transfer, to a blend of risk-transfer and service/risk management 

  • It’s no longer enough to rely on your line knowledge… Plot a future where you become specialized in an industry to understand the emerging risks, so your good judgement adds most value

  • Deploy automation and straight-through processing to reduce admin and increase the speed at which transactions occur and business is written

Protect your competitive advantage by retaining talent and upskilling underwriters 

  • Arm your underwriter with the latest understanding of AI, IoT and Blockchain to usher in a new era of tech-savvy underwriters who are confident building models and feeding into software tools

  • Consider the full spectrum of reward and incentivization to hire, retain and enable underwriters to influence data collection, solve genuine business problems and connect them to the social purpose of insurance as a means of transferring risk 

  • Upskill existing staff in statistics, analytics, engineering and AI tools to meet the needs of a more commoditized market - and use any free time created to develop statistical rating models, performance optimization and portfolio steering

  • Address the challenge of attracting young talent, with cutting-edge data expertise in the face of an aging workforce – How can the insurance industry compete with start-ups in terms of culture and innovation? 

Theme 4:  Anticipate emerging risks:  New customers,

a new economy and new perils

Deliver intuitive products quickly to market that deliver continuous value 

  • Re–segment customers to develop more targeted, tailored, and personalised propositions, drive product innovation to meet requirements and incorporate customer feedback and data to highlight areas of product development that will benefit the market

  • Find new ways of understanding your customers using new sources of data to develop new insurance products and underwriting capacity 

  • Test for appetite with minimal risk by going to market with a minimally viable product to increase chances of success and your ability to fine-tune products 

  • Avoid unnecessary costs and delays and work with I.T. from the outset on new initiatives to reduce the time of testing cycles, reduce modifications and unite behind better planning 

  • Empower product owners to reduce IT reliance and make it easier for them to quickly tailor products for specific market segments

Exceed customer expectations through technology and straight through processing

  • Respond swiftly to demographic changes in mobility, wealth distribution, autonomy and the gig economy – and discuss how this impacts underwriting 

  • Provide a superior customer service by reducing friction in the underwriting process:  Get advice on making the onboarding process quicker and more efficient by reducing simplifying question sets, making it less painful for your customer and less labour intensive for your workforce  

  • Become more effective in placing insurance by streamlining your inputs, analysing the risk and responding to customers more quickly using technology 

  • Customer acquisition:  Rationalise the dichotomy between insurers who appear broker-friendly, and yet strive to be omni-channel - especially in the increasingly commoditized SME/BOP space

Price emerging risks by using data more intelligently 

  • Use predictive analytics, social media and customer data to get a better understanding of risk and price more appropriately 

  • Adapt to tectonic shifts in the sharing economy and the gig economy:  As the boundaries blur between lines of business, coverages and entire industries, how do you identify new and developing risks early and develop mitigation strategies?   

  • As the need to insure intangible assets skyrockets, how do you overcome a lack of data for intangible assets like business interruption, cyber, IP and reputation, quantify the loss, pinpoint when the breach occurred and calculate the total cost of the consequences

  • Get advice on how to insure automated environments as robotics and interconnected systems reshape manufacturing and industry, radically changing the risks and rendering historical data invalid

  • Hear expert insights on writing cyber risk and address the challenge of modelling a moving target as new threats emerge and businesses increasing require an individualized approach

Theme 5:  Adapt to the changing distribution and regulatory landscape

Manage innovation in underwriting within a regulatory framework 

  • Will state regulators hamper innovation in underwriting by restricting the use of external data – such as credit history, retail purchasing history, social media and geographic location – and reduce the speed to market for new products?  

  • Get tips on navigating the regulatory landscape and get new, ethically data-driven products to market in a non-discriminatory way, avoiding gender and ethnic bias 

  • Cohesively unite data across finance, claims and reinsurance so you’re better prepared to respond to regulatory requests 

  • Discuss how increased regulatory scrutiny could limit the growth of brokers and MGAs, and the impact this will have on underwriters as MGAs bypass primary insurers to create their own hybrid models

Reconfiguration of the value chain: Create better profit margins by lowering the cost of transactions 

  • Leverage APIs/open platforms, blockchain and standardization to aid the flow of data across broker, insurer, reinsurer and regulator to reduce costs and improve the integrity of data across a complex value chain

  • Build a strategy for engaging with ebrokers, aggregators, insurtechs and MGAs to access niche and profitable markets, and integrate new partners to deliver more innovative products and better levels of service

  • Explore the role of technology such as automated sanctions checking, on-line quoting systems and pro-forma wordings that can be sent out quickly and amended efficiently, reducing friction for simpler, smaller policies 

  • Get a strategy in place to leverage ecosystem partnerships to deliver embedded insurance via a network of partners and explore the role of non-insurance players in risk analysis and pricing

2019 Sponsors and Partners