Insurance Business America issue 3.09

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IBAMAG.COM ISSUE 3.09

RANCE

ELITE WOMEN

IN INSURANCE CHANGING LANDSCAPE INSURING THE HEALTH SECTOR IN THE WAKE OF OBAMACARE

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THE GREAT DEBATE WHY AUTO UNDERWRITING PRACTICES ARE SUDDENLY UNDER FIRE

CONSTRUCTION BOOM HOW TO CAPITALIZE ON THIS NEWLY REVIVED INDUSTRY

18/09/2015 5:33:08 AM

NOT ALL RISKS ARE BLACK AND WHITE.

The chameleon is well known for its ability to change color and adapt to its surroundings.

It is nature’s solution to surviving in a challenging environment. Risk comes in every color —it’s rarely black and white. The risk management world is always changing. RSG Underwriting Managers’ specialty MGU facilities excel in this world by using experience, creativity and expertise to provide unique solutions to challenging risks. Contact RSG Underwriting Managers at (855) 201-2000 or visit www.ryansg.com.

RSG Underwriting Managers, LLC, is a Delaware series limited liability company and a subsidiary of Ryan Specialty Group, LLC, specializing in underwriting management and other services for insurance products distributed through agents and brokers. In California: RSG Insurance Services, LLC, Lic. #0E50879. Direct Group Limited (Registered No. 2461657) and Millennium Insurance Brokers Limited (Registered No. 3566382) are insurance distribution businesses and are authorized and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. © 2015 Ryan Specialty Group, LLC

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ISSUE 3.O9

CONNECT WITH US Got a story or suggestion, or just want to find out some more information? twitter.com/InsuranceBizUS

CONTENTS

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UPFRONT 04 Editorial

Women are making their mark on the industry

FEATURES

42

A BOOMING BUSINESS

COVER STORY

24

The construction industry is hot once again, presenting producers with boundless opportunity

PEOPLE

INDUSTRY ICON

Why brokers should beware of Uber coverage gaps

10 News analysis

New reports are shining a light on controversial auto underwriting procedures

12 Intelligence

Are your clients guilty of these three common workers’ comp mistakes?

FEATURES

48

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

How insuring the healthcare industry has changed in the wake of the Affordable Care Act

16 Technology update

Is Allstate going too far in capturing driver data?

18 Opinion

How to get your clients on board with cyber insurance

PEOPLE 55 Career path

College wasn’t the right fit for David James – but the insurance industry was

56 Other life

When Sam Brown needs to de-stress, he grabs his surfboard

PEOPLE

52

PRODUCER PROFILE

For Rupert Hall, writing policies for unorthodox businesses is just part of the family legacy

2

08 Head to head

14 Workers’ comp update

Lexington Insurance president and CEO Jeremy Johnson makes his predictions for the industry’s future

20

How to target small businesses

This month’s big movers and shakers

ELITE WOMEN IN INSURANCE

As these 40 female leaders demonstrate, there’s never been a better time to be a woman in the insurance industry

06 Statistics

IBAMAG.COM CHECK IT OUT ONLINE

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38007 B

RISING TO MEET THE DEMANDS OF COMPLEX BROKERAGE. As complex risks become increasingly difficult to place, the demands placed on you continue to rise.

Burns & Wilcox Brokerage meets these challenges head-on with expertise, experience and seamless access to global market centers.

BurnsAndWilcoxBrokerage.com

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7/13/15 10:25 AM 18/09/2015 5:16:40 AM

UPFRONT

EDITORIAL

Breaking down barriers

I

t’s a great time to be a woman in insurance. Nearly 75% of attendees at the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation’s Women in Insurance Global Conference this summer said progress is being made toward achieving gender parity in the industry. Another two-thirds say they have seen that progress happening within their own organizations.

Of course, there is still work to be done. Survey respondents suggested that there are still limited opportunities for women’s advancement within the industry, as well as some biases against female leaders ascending to the C-suite.

More and more, however, the insurance industry is embracing change.

Across the country, workplaces are celebrating gender diversity and creating opportunities for powerhouse women to rise and make their mark in the business they love.

These industry pioneers are truly paving the way for the next generation of female leadership These industry pioneers are truly paving the way for the next generation of female leadership. Through advanced skills, expertise and commitment to exemplary leadership, these women are propelling the industry forward and demonstrating that insurance is a positive path for any ambitious person looking for an outstanding career in business.

To honor their accomplishments, Insurance Business America has scoured the industry to select 40 trailblazers for this year’s list of Elite Women in Insurance. Despite the many challenges still faced by the industry, there are many success stories that need to be shared – and many insurance professionals deserving of praise.

We hope reading about these extraordinary women will leave you just as excited for the future of the industry as we are.

The team at Insurance Business America

www.ibamag.com OCTOBER 2O15 EDITORIAL Senior Journalist Caitlin Bronson Journalists Ryan Smith Tim Garratt Donald Horne Olivia D’ Orazio Copy Editor Clare Alexander

CONTRIBUTORS Samantha Wright Michael Loeters Tim Baker

ART & PRODUCTION Design Manager Daniel Williams

SALES & MARKETING Vice President Cathy Masek Media Sales Managers Chris Wills Chris Anderson Marketing and Communications Manager Lisa Narroway

CORPORATE Chief Executive Officer Mike Shipley Chief Operating Officer George Walmsley Chief Information Officer Colin Chan Human Resources Manager Julia Bookallil

Designers Joenel Salvador Production Manager Alicia Salvati Traffic Manager Kay Valdez

EDITORIAL INQUIRIES caitlin.bronson@keymedia.com

SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRIES subscriptions@keymedia.com

ADVERTISING INQUIRIES

cathy.masek@keymedia.com chris.wills@keymedia.com chris.anderson@keymedia.com

Key Media 78O7 E. Peakview Ave., Suite 115 Centennial, CO 80111, USA tel: +1 720 316 0151 www.keymedia.com Offices in Denver, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland, Manila

Insurance Business America is part of an international family of B2B publications and websites for the insurance industry INSURANCE BUSINESS CANADA john.mackenzie@kmimedia.ca T +1 416 644 874O

INSURANCE BUSINESS AUSTRALIA peter.smith@keymedia.com.au T +61 2 8437 47OO

INSURANCE BUSINESS NZ peter.smith@keymedia.com.au T +61 2 8437 47OO

Copyright is reserved throughout. No part of this publication can be reproduced in whole or part without the express permission of the editor. Contributions are invited, but copies of work should be kept, as the magazine can accept no responsibility for loss.

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18/09/2015 5:17:48 AM

Beyond Security®

“It Takes Discipline”

Marty Hacala Fitness Enthusiast General Star President & CEO

“Rolling out of bed at 5am every morning to work out requires discipline. It’s my way of getting the very most out of my busy day.

“At General Star, we strive to get the very most out of our wholesale broker relationships. As a member of the Berkshire Hathaway family of companies, our financial strength is unsurpassed. But it’s our disciplined approach to building and maintaining profitable partnerships with a select group of brokers that drives us.

“Discipline: Whether sticking with an early morning exercise regimen or standing firm with a limited number of valuable wholesale broker relationships, it remains the cornerstone of our success.”

To locate the General Star broker nearest you, visit our website at www.generalstar.com.

© 2015 General Star National Insurance Company is licensed in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and all states. General Star National Insurance Company has its principal place of business in Stamford, CT and operates under NAIC Number 0031-11967. Insurance is placed with General Star National Insurance Company by licensed producers. General Star Indemnity Company is an eligible surplus lines insurer in all states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. It has the status as an unlicensed insurer in California and operates under NAIC Number 0031-37362. Insurance is placed with the General Star Indemnity Company by licensed producers and, for risk that qualify, by licensed surplus lines brokers.

Atlanta 404 239 6777

Chicago 312 267 8600

A.M. Best A++ XV

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Los Angeles 213 630 1930

S&P AA+

New York 212 859 3950

Stamford 203 328 5700

A Berkshire Hathaway Company

18/09/2015 5:17:57 AM

UPFRONT

STATISTICS

Small business = big opportunity What are small businesses looking for in an insurer, and how can you capitalize on this lucrative market?

SMALL BUSINESSES have always formed the backbone of a commerical insurance broker’s clientele. Given their varied industries and insurance needs, SMEs and brokers are often a perfect match.

As small business owners continue to take their research and purchasing power online, will they stick with brokers or branch out on their own?

Recently released research shows that

27.9 million Number of American companies that employ less than 500 people

40%

Maximum percentage of small businesses that do not reopen after a natural disaster

SMALL BUSINESSES TO TARGET The growing revenues for these industries suggest that small businesses within these sectors have the most potential.

while the use of the Internet for purchasing insurance is growing amongst small business owners, an insurance broker is still the first port of call. However, in an ever-changing and competitive landscape, brokers need to understand what small business owners want – and need – from their insurance interactions and which industries are showing the greatest potential to stay on top of the market in the future.

600,000 Number of small businesses launched every year

51%

Percentage of small businesses that say health insurance is the most difficult to deal with

Sources: The Travelers Institute: Small Business, Big Opportunity; United States Small Business Association

WHAT’S MOST IMPORTANT TO CUSTOMERS? Many business owners put personal service at the top of the list 1. Having someone to ‘go to bat for me’ when necessary

2. Trust in the person or company 3. Having someone to take care of me and my insurance needs

4. Quick service response 5. Recommendations for sufficient insurance protection

6. Help filing and managing a claim 7. Choices of coverage 8. Confidence that I am making the right insurance decisions

9. Having a person who understands my business

WHAT CUSTOMERS WANT The National Association of Professional Insurance Agents asked small business owners a range of questions designed to compare shopping for insurance online to their experience with a broker SAVE THEM TIME

COMMUNICATE BETTER

BE AN EXPERT

I like being able to condense all the information into a phone call instead of sitting in front of the computer for hours and hours and hours starting from scratch, trying to weed it out on my own

What I wish I didn’t have to do again is speak to an agent or multiple agents.

It just feels like sometimes they’re not getting back to me fast enough or I’m getting the runaround

You need someone who understands what you’re doing, what your risk may or may not be, and [has] an independent opinion of what you should or should not do

LOOK TO THE FUTURE

PERSONALIZE YOUR SERVICE

I think my own generation is very used to that one-on-one but I think with my children, they have a different view.

They’ll be shopping more online; I think it’s just the future

If something happens, I have someone I can call. I’m not talking to someone who doesn’t know me. I call them, I just say my first name and who I’m with, and they know exactly who I want to talk to

10. Personal attention Source: Small Business Insurance & The Internet, PIA

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Source: Small Business Insurance & The Internet, PIA

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18/09/2015 5:18:42 AM

THE BIGGEST SMALL BUSINESS INDUSTRIES CURRENT FASTESTGROWING SECTORS 1 General freight trucking

Revenue growth: 24.8%

2 Foundation, structure and

building exterior contractors Revenue growth: 19.4%

3 Services to buildings and

dwellings Revenue growth: 16.7%

4 Specialized freight trucking

Revenue growth: 16.3%

5 Computer systems design and

related services Revenue growth: 13.8%

1 Professional, scientific and

FUTURE FASTESTGROWING SECTORS

technology services Total number of businesses: 3,981,701

1 Motion capture software

Projected revenue growth: 65.6%

2 Construction

Total number of businesses: 2,986,853

2 Telehealth services Projected revenue growth: 49.4%

3 Real estate, rental and leasing

3 Cider production

Total number of businesses: 2,658,704

Projected revenue growth: 38.8%

4 Medical marijuana stores

4 Healthcare & social assistance

Projected revenue growth: 38.4%

Total number of businesses: 2,579,548

5 Peer-to-peer lending platforms

Projected revenue growth: 37.7%

5 Retail trade

Total number of businesses: 2,553,731

Source: Small and Business Insurance & The Internet, PIA Sources: SageWorks/Forbes.com, US Small Business Administration/SUSB Nonemployer Statistics, INC.com

WHY PEOPLE AREN’T BUYING ONLINE An overwhelming majority of small business owners surveyed by PIA said it’s the personal touch that keeps them from buying insurance online 80%

WHERE CUSTOMERS FIND INSURANCE INFORMATION Agents are still the biggest source, but online research continues to grow 50%

60%

40%

40%

30% 20%

20%

10% 0%

I want to deal with a person directly for my insurance needs

My insurance needs are too complex for online purchasing

I’m not comfortable making purchases or changes to my policy on my own

I am concerned about online security

I tried using the website in the past, but had a bad experience

Source: Small Business Insurance & The Internet, PIA

0%

Insurance Online Other agent research professionals (e.g. accountant)

Directly from an insurance company

Friend

Source: Small Business Insurance & The Internet, PIA

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18/09/2015 5:53:53 AM

UPFRONT

HEAD TO HEAD

How will Uber coverage gaps impact brokers?

Uber drivers relying on personal car insurance are playing with fire, but brokers who take on these clients could be at risk, too

Ashley Ostrowski

Jay McGee

Abel Longoria

Agency producer Ostrowski Insurance

Agent Clemens Insurance

Broker/owner Goosehead Insurance

“For an Uber driver to be properly covered, they would need a small business, taxi or fleet policy – not a personal auto insurance policy. Those types of policies, though, are trickier to get, and only some agencies write them due to the transportation risk.

As brokers, this typically wouldn’t pose a threat to us. For us to be at risk, we would have to knowingly and unethically sell a client a policy that we knew wouldn’t cover the risk. But, if we very clearly explain that their personal policy will not cover their work as an Uber driver and we appropriately document the correspondence, it sets us up for better protection within our agency.”

“The threat to brokers comes from them being aware of their clients driving for Uber, but not putting their clients on the proper coverage forms or commercial policies, or not informing them of the exclusion in their personal auto policy. The real exposure falls on the consumer who is … driving passengers for a fee and thinks their personal auto policy will cover that.

It’s only a matter of time before personal auto carriers address this exposure specifically in their underwriting processes. They will want to know if their clients are performing this operation and non-renew, or not offer terms to those accounts because they aren’t getting adequate premium for the exposure.”

“If you don’t mention that the standard insurance policy will not cover your client for any sort of business use, and that client gets into an accident, it could be a huge errors and omissions issue.

Agents need to be on top of their current book in order to make sure clients are properly covered. The client has a responsibility to let us know if they change their driving habits, but we still need to make sure we are asking about ridesharing when we do quarterly/yearly checkups.

Some carriers offer supplemental coverage for Uber drivers, but if your agency cannot accommodate this, it is important that you find a trusted referral source who you can recommend.”

RISKY BUSINESS As ridesharing programs such as Uber continue to rise in popularity, brokers are being forced to update the way they do business – starting with how they deal with existing and prospective clients. Many Uber drivers are unaware that they’re not covered for business use under their existing personal auto insurance policies. Those who are aware put themselves at risk – should they get into an accident, the resulting claim could be denied. For brokers and agents, though, the real danger is in nondisclosure. Failing to inform your clients of this coverage gap could result in an errors and omissions claim.

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18/09/2015 5:19:23 AM

OVERSEAS, BUT NOT UNDERINSURED International coverage for small business | starting at $1,250

More than 25% of small companies do business internationally and even more ask employees to travel overseas. Gaps in domestic insurance programs put them at risk of financial loss or facing dangerous events in unfamiliar places, unassisted. As their broker, you can offer clients an affordable yet comprehensive international package to fill these gaps.

With ACEAdvantage.NET® from ACE Commercial Risk Services®, you’re just 9 questions and 60 seconds away from an international policy that extends liability, property, medical, workers compensation, travel and executive-assistance benefits internationally. Prices start at just $1,250, so your clients can afford to go abroad without going underinsured.

For more information call 888-762-9223 or visit us at aceadvantage.com

© 2015 ACE Group. ACE®, ACE logo®, and ACE insured.® are registered trademarks of ACE Limited. Insurance is provided by ACE American Insurance Company (Philadelphia, PA) or, in some states, other insurers within the ACE Group of Companies or its allied distribution associates. All products may not be available in all states and surplus lines products can only be offered through licensed surplus lines brokers. Not all applicants are eligible for a policy.

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18/09/2015 5:19:28 AM

UPFRONT

NEWS ANALYSIS

Is auto underwriting off-track?

Recent controversy over the use of divisive risk factors in pricing models has led to heightened scrutiny of the nation’s auto insurers THE NATION’S auto insurers are facing a fresh round of criticism, thanks to a series of reports from consumer advocacy groups and industry researchers highlighting the use of non-driving-related factors in rate setting practices.

While California, Hawaii and Massachusetts have all banned the use of non-driving-related underwriting criteria, elsewhere, insurers have free rein in choosing how to price this increasingly commoditized product. As a result, information like credit score, marital status, occupation and ZIP code often outweighs a policyholder’s driving record.

pricing practices of large carriers like Allstate, Geico, Progressive and State Farm. Based on premium quotes from these carriers and 700 other US firms, Consumer Reports drew sharp conclusions about some of the most controversial of underwriting factors.

Bad credit, for example, is penalized with greater severity than a host of other liabilities – including drunk-driving convictions.

Consistently, people with ‘good’ credit scores paid $68 to $526 more than those with ‘excellent’ scores, Consumer Reports’ researchers found. The gap was so substantial that Florida drivers with poor credit paid a

“Insurance-based credit scores are ... strongly predictive of loss, and that’s a net benefit to consumers” Robert Hartwig, Insurance Information Institute This knowledge is nothing new to insurance professionals and academics – the practice of incorporating risk factors not directly related to auto liability has long been debated in professional circles. What is new is the access consumers have to data illustrating just how much these factors affect their bottom line.

In early August, Consumer Reports released research titled “The Truth About Car Insurance,” a sprawling document detailing the

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whopping $1,552 more than those with the best scores.

Perhaps even more sensationalized by the mainstream press was July research from the Consumer Federation of America showing that insurers rely so heavily on marital status while setting rates that most increase premium prices for newly widowed policyholders by an average 20%.

In general, unmarried women pay more

for auto insurance than their married counterparts. Farmers, for instance, will charge a married woman 34% less than they would to a woman who is single, separated or divorced.

Geico charges the most – about 226% more for an auto premium.

Blue-collar workers also appear to be the target of higher rates. A recent industry analysis conducted by the New York Public Interest Research Group showed that three of the five largest carriers in the US use education as an underwriting factor when assessing premiums, and two consider occupation.

The resulting algorithm means that blue-collar workers with less education pay about 41% more than white-collar workers with a college degree, all else being equal.

Geico, for example, would charge a bank teller with only a high-school diploma 19% more annually than a bank executive with a college degree ($607 versus $511), all else being equal.

A high-school graduate who worked in retail would pay 41% more annually than the same

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CREDIT-CRUNCHING CARRIERS These five auto insurers most severely penalize poor borrowing habits – the percentages represent the difference between auto quotes for consumers with excellent credit history and those with no credit history.

120% 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0%

116%

83%

Allstate

Farmers

56%

47%

45%

Geico Progressive State Farm Source: WalletHub

bank executive ($722 versus $511).

The numbers hold true when compared with disparate driving records. In some cases, a blue-collar worker with a clean driving record could still pay much more for auto insurance

low-paying jobs and less education is unfair and should be tightly regulated, if used at all,” Hunter says. “Auto insurance, which is required to be purchased by the state, should be rated on driving record, miles driven and other factors

“The use of non-driving-related factors to raise rates for people with low-paying jobs and less education is unfair” J. Robert Hunter, Consumer Federation of America than a white-collar worker with one or two moving violations, or even an at-fault accident.

For consumer advocates like J. Robert Hunter, a former Texas insurance commissioner and current head of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, such practices are unacceptable.

“I am convinced that the use of non-drivingrelated factors to raise rates for people with

clearly related to the risk of driving.”

Yet industry representatives defend their approach to pricing, saying correlation between such non-driving-related factors and the likelihood of a claim is well-established.

“The fact that insurance-based credit scores are an important part of setting rates is nothing new,” says Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute. “It is strongly

predictive of loss, and that’s a net benefit to consumers.”

James Lynch, an actuary with the same organization, adds that auto carriers “don’t pull these variables out of the hat,” and factors that seem random are actually based on historical data that reflects a driver’s likelihood to have an accident.

Regardless of the legality or morality of auto underwriting practices, the fact remains that they are widespread and can have a huge effect on premiums. Curiously, though, consumer loyalty to auto insurers has never been stronger.

According to recent research from Insurance Quotes.com, one in four Americans has been with the same auto insurance company for more than 16 years, and a third of drivers say they never shop around for competing quotes.

That should be a powerful motivator for insurance agents, who excel at comparison shopping and demystifying some of the more complicated aspects of choosing a policy, says company analyst Laura Adams.

“All it takes is an hour every year to compare at least three companies’ quotes. That’s worth it to potentially save hundreds – or even thousands – of dollars.”

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18/09/2015 5:20:01 AM

PRODUCTS

UPFRONT

INTELLIGENCE CORPORATE ACQUIRER

TARGET

PRODUCTS COMMENTS

Arthur J. Gallagher

National Administration Co.

NAC is a national program administrator that offers affinity group and association products and services

AssuredPartners

Insurance & Benefits Group

IBG specializes in P&C products and services for businesses, educational institutions and nonprofits

Hub International

BW Insurance Agency

BWIA specializes in key industries like agriculture, real estate, energy, transportation and construction

Integro

Entertainment Risk Management

The acquisition will give Integro access to brokers in the film and television industries

Meadowbrook Insurance

Mackinaw Administrators

Mackinaw is a program and claims administrator working in workers’ comp, general liability, medical professional liability and liquor liability

Risk Innovations

Columbia Commercial General Agency

The deal expands Risk Innovations’ reach in Missouri; Columbia will continue to operate from its original headquarters

RT Specialty

A.J. Renner

The acquisition of the Illinois-based wholesale insurance broker expands RT Specialty’s footprint in the life science arena

TUMI launches dump truck insurance program

Programs specialist acquires Washington-based company

A prominent insurance programs specialist has taken over another programs company in a deal expected to close in the next 60 days. New York-based Distinguished Programs Holdings announced in August that it had purchased Fulcrum Insurance Programs of Bellevue, Wash. The two businesses will combine and rebrand as Distinguished Specialty. Both Fulcrum and Distinguished’s subsidiary, National Specialty Underwriter, are known for highlimit umbrella liability purchasing groups, targeting commercial and habitational real estate, hotels, resorts, casinos and restaurants. With the deal, Distinguished gains access to Fulcrum’s book of real estate and hospitality industry business.

“Fulcrum has an outstanding reputation and a deeply talented team,” said Distinguished CEO Jeremy R. Hitzig. “We’ve admired the company as competitors and are thrilled that they will be combining with our organization.

We believe that together we will deliver best-in-class programs for the hospitality and real estate industries with a focus on quality, service and innovation.”

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Trinity Underwriting Managers Inc., a program manager that underwrites niche transportation programs and operates a wholesale division that places risks that fall outside the parameters of their established program underwriting guidelines, has connected with an A-rated insurance carrier to launch a program for dump truck operators and other aggregate haulers. Available coverages include auto liability, general liability, cargo and physical damage. The program began accepting submissions on August 1, and is available on a nationwide basis by appointed retail agents.

Crop insurer adds new total revenue coverage option

Hudson Insurance Co. has added a new coverage to its suite of crop insurance products. Total Revenue Coverage [TRC] functions as a supplemental policy to multi-peril crop insurance and offers producers a single, firm crop revenue guarantee at the time of signup. The policy addresses recent concerns among producers over extreme price volatility in the market. TRC offers a range of dollar amounts per acre and payment limits commensurate with the farm and crop, helping to protect revenue, including Title I payments, when crop prices or yields are low.

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18/09/2015 5:20:26 AM

PEOPLE

PEOPLE Towers Watson develops UBI solution

Global professional services company Towers Watson has partnered with Cambridge Mobile Telematics to create a usage-based auto insurance product. The product, which is available everywhere except Canada and South Africa, is intended to benefit carriers and consumers by incorporating data from a variety of sources. The joint offering includes Towers Watson’s DriveAbility program, analytics and insurance expertise, as well as CMT’s DriveWell smartphone telematics solution and lightweight hardware Tag option.

Agency software developer adds new features

Texas-based EZLynx, which develops software for independent insurance agencies, has augmented its agency management system with EZLynx Policy Compare and Policy Sync, two new tools meant to help agents increase efficiency.

Policy Compare allows agents to view two policies side-by-side to instantly identify the differences and explain premium changes to customers, while Policy Sync enables agents to compare and sync current policy information with EZLynx Rating Engine. Both tools are available to EZLynx customers at no additional cost.

ACE expands small business product suite

ACE has added to its suite of specialty commercial products for small businesses. ACE Commercial Risk Services now offers coverages in lessor’s risk BOP, liquor liability, commercial umbrella, employment practices liability BOP enhancement, privacy liability and data breach insurance BOP enhancement, and professional liability BOP enhancement. The products are available online through ACE Solutions Fast Track, which can prefill building data such as year built, construction, occupancy, number of stories and square footage.

NAME

LEAVING

JOINING

NEW POSITION

Jill Beggs

N/A

Munich Reinsurance America

Andy Brown

N/A

ACE Ltd.

Global head of downstream energy

Markus English

ACE Group Holdings

Tokio Marine Kiln Group

Enterprise risks underwriting manager

Chris Fagan

N/A

ACE Ltd.

Underwriter

Phillip Fong

N/A

Crawford & Co.

Managing director, Singapore

Peter Geerken

Aon Credit International

Tokio Marine Kiln Group

Surety and credit underwriter

Brian Griffith

Hartford Financial Services Group

QBE Insurance Group

Executive vice president, field management and distribution

Alex Hindson

Amlin

Argo Group International Holdings

Chief risk officer

Michael Krawitz

VeriTeQ Corp.

York Risk Services Group

Senior vice president and general counsel

Sue Langley

N/A

Arthur J. Gallagher

Nonexecutive chairman, Arthur J. Gallagher Holdings

Nikki Lankford

N/A

Liberty Mutual

Regional vice president, metro New York

David Marino

Aon

Marsh

US construction practice leader

Guilherme Perondi Neto

Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty

Lockton Cos.

Deputy CEO, Lockton Brazil

Dominick Tassone

N/A

Aspen Insurance Holdings

Executive vice president of programs

Reed VanOrsdel

Corporate Synergies

Alliant

Vice president, employee benefits

Head of new strategic markets

Insurance House appoints new president and CEO

Excess and surplus lines MGA Insurance House has named Jacqueline M. Schaendorf as its next president and CEO. An industry veteran with more than 19 years of experience at Insurance House, Schaendorf has served as the company’s executive vice president, as well as president and CEO of Southern General Insurance Company, a role in which she will continue. Schaendorf is recognized throughout the surplus lines community for her leadership and promotion of continuing professional education within the industry. In her new role, she will focus on continuing Insurance House’s reputation for underwriting excellence and attracting talented industry professionals.

Hiscox names new head of property for Miami MGA

Specialist global insurer Hiscox has named John Giralt head of property for its Miami MGA operation, Hiscox Miami. Giralt will primarily focus on writing property, power generation and construction business in the Latin America and Caribbean regions, as well as additional partner capacity providers as required. With a capacity of $25 million per risk, Giralt will concentrate on writing local business while complementing Hiscox’s existing book of international property business. Giralt has more than 30 years of experience in the industry, including 20 years spent focusing on the Caribbean region. He joins Hiscox from XL Catlin, where he was a director covering the Americas.

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18/09/2015 5:20:38 AM

UPFRONT

WORKERS’ COMP UPDATE

Three comp mistakes that trigger fines Mismanaging workers’ compensation applications can lead to fines or even a lapse in coverage

Failing to provide insurance from day one could trigger a gap in coverage and come back to haunt both the agent and their client.

“It may take three years for something like carpal tunnel to manifest itself, and carriers will want to figure out exactly when that injury occurred,” McKinney says. “If there’s a gap in coverage, the carrier could determine the injury occurred during the gap and be liable for the claim payment.”

There’s a powerful temptation to include as many employees as possible under this filing

Mistakes on workers’ compensation applications are not uncommon, according to La’Troya McKinney, commercial lines account manager for Abram Interstate Insurance Services, and even experienced insurance agents can benefit from a few refreshers.

In general, if an employer is scheduling the worker’s time and directing their activities, the worker is considered an employee. Failure to distinguish between the two can subject the employer to fines of up to $150 per day, per employee.

1. Misclassifying employee status Because employers are not required to provide workers’ comp coverage for contract workers, there’s a powerful temptation to include as many employees as possible under this filing.

2. Not beginning coverage soon enough Agents must ensure coverage begins the minute a new employee sets foot in the office, including training or other work for which the employee is paid prior to beginning full-time work.

NEWS BRIEFS

California earmarks $35 million to fight fraud

The California Department of Insurance has dedicated $34.95 million to curb rampant workers’ compensation fraud. Thirty-seven district attorneys in 42 counties received grants through an application that was reviewed by a department panel and approved by the California Fraud Assessment Commission.

The efforts to root out workers’ comp fraud are part of a larger series of moves by the California Department of Insurance to curb costs in the state, which are currently the highest in the nation.

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3. Not covering family members Under California law, resident relatives are not required to be included on an individual sole proprietor’s workers’ compensation policy.

Rules on family members change, however, when a business incorporates. Full workers’ compensation coverage is required for any family members who are not officers of the corporation, including spouses and children.

To help clients avoid the potential cost increase here, McKinney frequently recommends company owners make their spouse an officer of the corporation, making them eligible for exclusion from the workers’ comp coverage.

While these guidelines are specific to California, “as a result of California’s stringent laws, they are a good model to use for other states also,” McKinney says.

Insurer launches company safety assessment tool

Liberty Mutual’s Risk Control Services has developed a safety climate survey that allows companies to assess whether they boast a culture of safety or just maintain the perception of one.

It evaluates workers’ opinions on how highly managers value safety, and can be implemented in organizations with 100 or more employees. Risk Control Services will then partner with the enterprise to develop strategies that will mitigate companies’ shortcomings in safety management.

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18/09/2015 5:21:04 AM

Q&A

David Snodgrass Assistant vice president, Risk Control Services SAFETY NATIONAL

Fast fact Since 1942, Safety National has provided alternative risk funding products, including excess workers’ compensation

Risk mitigation strategies for the workplace How effectively are workplaces in the US today implementing risk management strategies to complement their workers’ comp insurance?

Can you provide any insight into how many workplace accidents are attributable to a workplace’s failure to put appropriate strategies into place?

This varies greatly by industry and size of company.

Safety National’s clients are mainly in the large account space, with companies that are self-insured or on a large deductible program, meaning they assume a significant degree of financial risk for incidents that occur, hence there is a natural built-in motivation for preventing and controlling workplace injuries.

These companies have recognized a competitive advantage in implementing effective risk management strategies to lower their overall total cost of risk. Companies that are able to embed risk management strategies throughout the organization, tie them to organizational performance and measure the results are generally the most effective.

Smaller organizations have varying degrees of success, mainly because they generally lack the internal risk management expertise. However, these smaller companies can obtain this expertise on an outsourced basis through insurance brokers, carriers and consultants.

The general long-term trend is a reduction in the frequency of workplace injuries; however, the reduction in more severe injuries has plateaued, and costs have continued to increase with treating these injuries, mainly driven by medical inflation, advances in medical technology and co-morbidities.

In my experience, more than 95% of workplace accidents likely could have been prevented had an appropriate risk management strategy been used effectively.

Nation’s largest wholesaler gets even bigger

All Risks Ltd., the nation’s largest independent wholesaler, has become larger with the acquisition of Austin, Tex.-based Tower Program Insurance Services, a national provider of insurance programs, including a recently developed solution for the tower construction industry. As a result of the deal, All Risks gains access to insurance veterans of more than 25 years and more than $10 million in written premium and can write workers’ compensation monoline with a minimum premium of $50,000.

How can brokers assist clients when it comes to risk mitigation strategies?

Insurance brokers are in a unique position to assist their clients with risk mitigation because this is closely tied to insurance coverage placement and cost. Clients with lacking or ineffective risk mitigation strategies may not be able to obtain coverage with a standard WC market, or have to pay considerably more than their competitors.

Many insurance brokers have realized this value proposition and have internal professionals working closely with their clients on injury prevention and WC claims cost containment strategies, providing comprehensive risk management solutions.

Insurance brokers also can leverage similar expertise for their clients from their insurance carriers, many times working in tandem with their own risk management professionals. Executed effectively, it can be a win-win-win for the broker, client and carrier in terms of lowering the total cost of risk, creating stability and fostering long-term partnerships.

Insurer adds WC to entertainment coverage

Hiscox USA has partnered with MIS Insurance Services to supplement its entertainment coverage with workers’ compensation policies. The offering will protect against risks inherent in all aspects of entertainment production. “We view the entertainment business as a huge growth opportunity for Hiscox,” said Hiscox USA’s Joanne Richardson. “If there’s even one coverage in our entertainment policy that we don’t underwrite and control ourselves, we’re limiting the opportunities we can pursue.”

Tennessee Titans player settles comp claim

Michael Roos, a secondround draft pick for the Tennessee Titans, has reached a settlement in his workers’ compensation case. Roos, who sustained 28 injuries during his decade on the field, decided to retire because of the deleterious effect the impairments had on his body, but the Titans declared his retirement “voluntary.” After negotiations, however, the Titans decided to award him with lump sum of $76,633.70 and agreed to arrange for “reasonable and necessary medical treatment” for his injuries.

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18/09/2015 5:21:14 AM

UPFRONT

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE NEWS BRIEFS The ‘multibilliondollar niche’ agents may be missing

As Fortune 500 companies and other enterprises across North America devote increasingly large amounts of their tech budgets to cloud computing, it’s becoming more and more clear that the cloud is here to stay. Currently, however, no coverage exists that protects the consumers of these services. Two trailblazers at a new provider called Cloudsurance are working with Lloyd’s of London to develop this coverage, recognizing that some cloud operators have signed hundreds of millions of customers and have no policies in place to protect them.

Insurers start investing in ridesharing companies

Debate over how much insurance coverage drivers with ridesharing companies need has been a sizable speed bump in the growth of firms like Uber and Lyft. However, several carriers have recently made moves to support this success. China Life Insurance Co. and China Taiping Insurance are two of Uber’s newest investors. A leaked presentation given to prospective investors revealed the two companies have helped Uber access nearly $50 billion in venture capital. Uber expects to grow that already sizable amount with an initial public offering in the next two years.

Pay-per-mile insurance popularity spreads

Metromile, a San Francisco-based insurance company, has officially launched operations in Pennsylvania.

The company, now active in six US states, is the nation’s only pay-per-mile

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car insurance provider – a service that has been termed “disruptive” by its CEO, Dan Preston. The model has the potential to provide huge savings for drivers who usually walk, bike or use public transportation to commute. The company distributes a free device that helps consumers track their mileage through Bluetooth, as well as find the car in a parking lot and monitor statistics.

New auto feature the secret to lowering claims?

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety [IIHS], a research-based organization dedicated to advancing automobile safety standards, has released findings indicating that a new technology could be instrumental in reducing the severity of auto collisions.

The test examined whether collisionavoidance systems on luxury vehicles – in this case, an alert to brake or an automatic brake – were effective in preventing front-end collisions. The results were promising: IIHS awarded its highest-possible ‘superior’ rating to 14 out of the 19 models tested.

Agents still needed in age of driverless cars Because driverless cars are expected to decrease traffic accidents by as much as 81%, it isn’t much of a stretch to imagine a future in which insuring personal transportation looks very different. Keith Moore, CEO of Coverhound, argues that liability policies for driverless cars will be similar to a “warrantee” and will be sold at driverless vehicle dealerships.

John Tiene, CEO of Agency Network Exchange, believes that driverless cars will create more work for agents, who will be called upon to provide a cyber policy, operator policy or a number of other products.

Allstate to play Big Brother?

A new patent points to plans to spy on drivers and passengers inside the car – and others nearby A newly discovered patent filed by Allstate Corp. proposes to use new and existing technology to monitor every move of the company’s auto insurance clients, from driver seat position to stereo volume.

Titled “Traffic-based Driving Analysis,” the patent was filed Aug. 11 and would allow Allstate to access not only telematics devices installed by the insurer, but also many monitors and cameras already included in most vehicles. It also provides for new technology and methods Allstate could use to check up on its customers.

Among other data, the carrier says it wants to know: • Who is riding in the car, including the number and age of passengers • Driver’s phone use while driving • Eating habits of the driver • “Potentially distracting” objects in the car, including animals trash or bags • Seating position • Driver’s eyeline • Stereo volume • Heart rate • Blood pressure • Alcohol content in the air Further patents suggest Allstate’s ambitions extend beyond their own policyholders. The company also wants to monitor the activity of other drivers on the street, as well as traffic patterns and weather conditions.

When questioned by reporters, company spokeswoman Laura Strykowski said the technology would “provide drivers with broader information about traffic conditions

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and external factors that could better equip them to drive safe.”

Others have a different view of the matter, however. J. Robert Hunter, former Texas insurance commissioner and current insurance director for the Consumer Federation of America, characterized the patent as “the invasion of the spy car.”

“So my car spies on me and on other drivers near me?” Hunter told the Chicago Tribune. “Even if I give permission for this intrusive technology, my car spies on unsuspecting passengers and even on unsuspecting pedestrians or cars driving by?”

Making the matter even more troubling are

“Even if I give permission for this intrusive technology, my car spies on unsuspecting passengers?” recent comments made by Allstate CEO Tom Wilson, suggesting the insurer is exploring the possibility of selling driver data.

Under terms of a potential agreement, Allstate customers would have their data transmitted to businesses in real time, allowing businesses to send them coupons and promotional materials based on when and where they are driving.

All this would be done in exchange for a potential discount on their insurance premium, Wilson said.

“There’s a whole bunch of people who look at the insurance industry and say, ‘Oh, it’s sleepy; they’re not really smart,’” Wilson told Bloomberg in July. “It’s for us to take them apart.”

Q&A

Anthony Abbattista Principal, US insurance technology leader DELOITTE CONSULTING

Fast fact Abbattista has almost three decades of experience in executive IT management and technology consulting, including nine years in an executive role with one of the US’ largest insurers

Catching up with technology Is the insurance industry starting to catch up to other areas of financial services when it comes to implementing new and emerging technologies?

I’d say they’re catching up, and I don’t think they have a choice.

What I’d say is that the customer is now defining the experience that people expect, both in sales and service. I think [insurers] can’t put their heads in the sand anymore. People want to buy how they want to buy, and when and where they want to buy, and really control that experience.

That’s the outside-in view … I think from the inside out, insurers have to embrace these technologies to really work in their expense ratios, because the smaller companies, some of the start-ups, are more nimble. People going direct are employing some of these techniques.

What are some of the most exciting recent technological innovations for the insurance space?

The Internet’s been around for a while. Some insurers are just starting to realize that banks and others have taken advantage of those technologies to have more customer intimacy … helping people think about how and when they want to be served. So the Internet and mobile, I still think, are not finished in insurance because some of the carriers are still fighting with aged models and changing demographics.

I think the other part is social. I think insurers are … just starting to scratch the surface on what data could possibly do about groups and demographics … of people. That could change their whole business and turn it upside down. I also think the idea of mass customizing insurance has just begun. I think technology is essentially driving products and offerings that are much more tailored and much more granular than insurance the way we’re used to buying it.

I’d also say that another technology innovation, autonomous driving, could decimate the auto insurance industry as we know it. I also think there are other innovations, such as 3D printing, that could change the entire life and annuity business. Some of the experts are saying we’re eight to 12 years away from printing organs with stem cells … so I do think there are innovations all around insurance that are fundamentally changing the business.

Where do you see technology offering even greater benefits in the next few years?

I think it’s going to become a symbiotic relationship between what’s good for the consumer and what’s good for the insurer. I think insurers can use data to compete with each other, but I also think they’re going to need to use data to really turn the game around to ‘what’s in it for the consumers.’ I think consumers need to be convinced why they’re giving up privacy and data, and why it should be a two-way street. I think the people who might win are those who can convince the consumer of why it’s good for them.

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18/09/2015 5:21:47 AM

UPFRONT

OPINION

GOT AN OPINION THAT COUNTS? Email iba@keymedia.com

Budgeting for cyber insurance Helping your clients understand cyber crime is the first step in protecting them from this very real – albeit intangible – risk, writes Michael Loeters THE INSURANCE industry has struggled with the successful positioning of cyber insurance coverage as part of the commercial insurance portfolio.

Other than insureds in verticals such as healthcare, financial services, retail and education, the conversion rate of discussions to quotes and quotes to binds has remained quite low. This is despite the onslaught of information, articles and underwriter presentations – not to mention the constant flow of high-profile breaches.

The truth is that this is the normal evolution of a new insurance product in the marketplace. First of all, it is a product that came into the market not because of a widespread demand, but rather due to the demand of a few select segments that were facing increased regulatory and balancesheet pressure. As an industry, we are now trying to broaden the appeal of this product to those who have not yet experienced this same pressure.

Second, clients are not opposed to spending money on additional balancesheet protection as long as they clearly understand the magnitude of the risk and its impact. Why should they now finance this risk with an insurance policy as opposed to continuing to self-insure?

Dealing with this objection has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks for brokers.

Quantifying cyber risk requires an insurance professional to think about their insureds’ risks differently. What data do they hold? What contractual obligations do they have to protect that data? How is

their supply chain set up from a network perspective? How would operations be impacted by a network outage, loss of data or privacy breach?

As insurance brokers, we are comfortable talking about fires, windstorms and product liability. We have been talking about it for years, and we can illustrate our points with a lot of existing claims. Insureds do not question their exposure to these perils

be the impact on the value of the company if they lost access to the data, or if all that data was public knowledge? The answers are not surprising.

The next step is quantifying the exposure. Many insurance carriers have created simple tools brokers can use to sit down with their insureds and quantify the risk in terms of cost impact. These tools are not perfect, but that isn’t the point.

We have had our insureds filling out profit worksheets for years, knowing that it is our best guess of future exposure.

Take one of these tools from an insurer, get comfortable with it, and use the process of completing it with an insured as an opportunity to have an intelligent conversation about their operations and risk profile. You are both likely to learn a lot.

Finally, be prepared to deal with the common objections you are going to hear: We have a firewall and antivirus protection. We are not high-profile. It has never happened to us. View these not as objections, but rather requests for

“You have to help your insured understand that no matter what business they are in, they are a data company” because they have become part of the standard insurance program. The templates used by lawyers for leases and contracts already include the requirement for this coverage, so they are part of the insurance program by default. Not so for cyber insurance.

So how do brokers successfully position cyber coverage as a critical part of an insured’s portfolio of coverage? First, you have to help your insured understand that, no matter what business they are in, they are a data company. Data is one of the most important assets a company holds today – from their intellectual property and customer data to their market information and financial records. How long could they function without this data? If it is valuable to them, why would it not also be valuable to someone else? What would

more information. The Internet is full of high-quality publications that will give you all the credible statistics and information you need.

Insureds have sprinkler systems and alarm systems, and have never had their premises burn down – yet they still buy property insurance. Qualify and quantify the risk, then tie it back to the balance sheet like you have always done, and you will be successful in getting your clients to adopt cyber insurance as part of their portfolios.

Michael Loeters is the vice president and cyber insurance team leader at BFL Canada Risk and Insurance Services, and has provided insurance and risk management services to a wide range of industries over his 21-year career.

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18/09/2015 5:22:19 AM

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18/09/2015 5:22:26 AM

PEOPLE

INDUSTRY ICON

LEADING LEXINGTON Jeremy Johnson, president and CEO of Lexington Insurance, talks innovation, industry talent and the Internet of Things

HE STUDIED law at Oxford University, but after immigrating to the United States, Jeremy Johnson ultimately pursued a career in insurance. “I ended up in an administrative role with Sedgwick,” Johnson says. “I certainly didn’t specifically target a career in the insurance industry.”

Today, Johnson leads Lexington Insurance, an AIG company and the largest excess and surplus carrier in the US – and he has no regrets about persisting in the industry.

“If I had to do it all over again, I would have targeted a career in the insurance industry,” he says. “I’ve had loads of really interesting assignments in 20 years, I’ve gotten to work with and around really great people, I’ve been exposed to so many different insureds around the country, and I’ve had the opportunity to see how so many different businesses operate.”

Back to the start Early in his career, Johnson was a directors & officers liability broker. He agrees that bigger challenges exist for directors and officers today than ever before.

“I think there is much more onus on boards of directors to be educated about the type of threats that their companies face than 15 to 20 years ago,” he says. “As a result, we’re seeing more boards of directors

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making sure that they’re educated. Lawsuits and investigations are more frequent and more severe, and new areas of concern that have developed over the last few years [include] cyber breaches, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations [and] excessive executive comp.”

Since 2000, Johnson has worked with AIG in several underwriting, sales and managerial roles. His time at the helm of Lexington began in April 2013. During that

we do innovate with new solutions. One of the most gratifying parts of this job is to hear a customer thank us for our risk expertise, our creativity or for a really quick response when they call on that promise to pay.”

Forward thinking Looking ahead, Johnson has a number of areas of technological development he plans to keep an eye on over the coming year. “The pace of change in the world has never been

“We are constantly listening to and learning from our customers, from our brokers and from our employees to make sure that we are responsive to their changing risks and that we do innovate with new solutions” time, he’s learned the importance of putting customers first.

“I think our customers can take the risks that they take, confident that they have a partner behind them,” he says. “We are constantly listening to and learning from our customers, from our brokers and from our employees to make sure that we are responsive to their changing risks and that

as fast as it is today,” he says. “New industries and new business models are being created with an alacrity that has never happened before.”

Accordingly, Johnson and his team spend considerable time contemplating the impact of the Internet of Things. “Some researchers estimate that could be a $10–$15 trillion industry in the next decade,” he says. “The

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PROFILE Name: Jeremy Johnson Company: Lexington Insurance Title: President and CEO Age: 44 Years in the industry: 20 Fast fact: Before taking on his current role, Johnson was specialty product line executive for AIG Property Casualty in the US and Canada

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18/09/2015 5:22:56 AM

PEOPLE

INDUSTRY ICON

range of exposures that come from interconnected devices across all industries is extraordinary, and the opportunity to assemble and analyze and aggregate data that comes from trillions of sensors in hundreds of billions of connected machines is extraordinary. [The Internet of Things] really has the potential to revolutionize business.

“We spend a lot of time … working with our customers and determining how we can harness the power of the Internet of Things to provide better service to our customers, better risk selection [and] better pricing models.”

to graduating classes about risk, careers, the insurance industry [and] AIG. It’s a big investment for us and … I hear many of my peers delivering the same message.”

Looking back Reflecting on his two-decade career, Johnson cites the relationships he’s forged as his biggest professional achievement. “I think that what I’m most proud of in my career is the relationships that I’ve built, the people that I know, and the people that I trust and the people who trust me. Put another way, I’m most proud of the social equity that I

“The pace of change in the world has never been as fast as it is today. New industries and new business models are being created with an alacrity that has never happened before” But the Internet of Things is just one piece of the technological puzzle that Johnson believes could have major impact on the industry. “We are spending a lot of time thinking about what the prospect of autonomous vehicles means to us,” he says. “We are watching the development of new crowdsourcing technologies. We spend a lot of time in the healthcare industry looking at how the business models in the US have changed as a result of the Affordable Care Act, and what new and emerging risks come from that. Finally, we’re watching and partaking in the development of private market flood solutions to complement the National Flood Insurance Program.”

Amidst all this rapid change, the industry will need new talent – and Johnson believes it’s actually quite invested in doing so. “At AIG, just in the US, we had nearly 400 interns this summer, and we’ll bring on many of those interns into our analyst program.

We spend a lot of time in the various universities and colleges … talking to students and

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have within AIG and that I think I have within the insurance industry.”

Of course, those relationships weren’t built without some hard-won lessons. “I can remember, 15 years ago, a really important customer called me out over lunch,” Johnson says. “She called me out because I was thinking about my response to her complaint when I really should’ve been just listening to her complaint. And she could tell I was distracted; she could tell that I was trying to think up what I would say about her complaint and I wasn’t really listening. Her calling me on that really stuck with me. I try to listen as openly as I possibly can.”

Another of Johnson’s major epiphanies is something perhaps too frequently forgotten across many industries – but particularly in insurance. “I think there’s a temptation to think that the sky is falling, and it never does,” he says. “The sun always comes up in the morning. So many of the things that we spend our time worrying about just aren’t worth worrying about.”

LEXINGTON BY THE NUMBERS

50

The number of years since Lexington Insurance’s incorporation; the company celebrated its 50th anniversary in August 2015

250

The total number of Lexington employees who were involved in marking the milestone by hosting a day of giving back at the company’s Boston headquarters

40,000

The number of meals Lexington employees packaged during the day for those in need overseas, in cooperation with Stop Hunger Now, an international nonprofit organization

200+

The number of new Lexington Insurance and AIG products and services launched between 2006 and 2011

$2 billion

The total gross written premium generated by the new products and services launched between 2006 and 2011

500

The approximate number of people currently employed by Lexington Insurance

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18/09/2015 5:23:03 AM

IBAmer

IBA is seeking leaders and producers in the insurance industry who made the biggest impact on commercial and E & S business in 2015.

These individuals will be recognized in our hottest issue of the year. To nominate, email Ryan Smith at ryan.smith@keymedia.com Deadline is November 13th www.ibamag.com

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18/09/2015 5:23:14 AMPM 16/09/2015 11:00:36

FEATURES

COVER STORY: ELITE WOMEN

ELITE WOMEN

IN INSURANCE IBA’s annual Elite Women report highlights the accomplishments of female professionals who are changing the face of the industry AT A time when women are increasingly rising to prominence in the insurance industry, it wasn’t an easy task to narrow down this year’s list of Elite Women in Insurance. We asked for your nominations of women who are making their mark on the industry,

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and we also reached out to brokerages, agencies, insurers and others to come up with this list of talented professionals. We believe the 40 women featured on the following pages represent the insurance space’s best and brightest.

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INDEX BY NAME

M

E

R

I

C

A

15

A

20

EL

IN IN

SU

WOM EN

ITE

RANCE

LEIGH ANN PUSEY

NAME

PAGE COMPANY

Baglio-Conza, Lisa

32

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

Bates, Stefanie

30

Venture Pacific Insurance Services

Beale, Inga

33

Lloyd's of London

Bocek, Rebecca

40

AmWINS

Bonanno, Kelly

34

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

Branch, Laurie

30

The Iroquois Group

Brandone, Jeanne

27

eHealthApp

Cigelnik, Randi

26

Property Casualty Insurers Association of America

Cloonen, Shannon

28

Heritage Insurance

Codispoti, Noelle

31

Gamma Iota Sigma

Combs, Susan

35

Women in Insurance & Financial Services

Curcio, Kim

34

AmWINS

Duncan, Amanda

36

PartnerOne Environmental

Dybdahl, Kari

37

American Risk Management Resources

Emek, Sharon

28

Work At Home Vintage Employees

Gardner, Beth

26

Cook Maran & Associates

Gee, Vivian

37

PURE Group of Insurance Companies

Golla, Susan

27

McGriff, Seibels & Williams

Guffey, Brenda

32

CTC Transportation Insurance Agency

Hapworth, Adele

36

The American Equity Underwriters

Hartman, Petronila

35

Arch Insurance Company

Holden, Lindsay

32

PURE Group of Insurance Companies

Kreider, Jessica

36

Capital Insurance & Bonding Services

Landon, Jennifer

30

Journey Financial Services

Lann, Kerri

26

Rockwood Programs

Lemanski, Lisa

29

Meiers Lombardini Lemanski Insurance

Lopez, Keri

40

Ascension Insurance

Mintz, Lynn

38

AVI Risk Management & Insurance Brokers

Nines, Agnes

32

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

Post, Kathy

26

Post Insurance and Financial

Pusey, Leigh Ann

25

American Insurance Association

Robinett, Cindy

25

Seacrest Partners

Rodriguez, Lori

34

AmWINS

Schaendorf, Jacqueline

38

Insurance House

Schroeder, Kathy

39

Sierra Specialty Insurance Services

Sherman, Laura

28

Baldwin Krystyn Sherman Partners

Torres, Suzette

26

Burns & Wilcox

West, Leasha

38

West Financial Group

Williamson, Danielle

30

Networked Insurance Agents

Zika, Lenise

38

Closson Insurance

President and CEO AMERICAN INSURANCE ASSOCIATION Recent business achievements: Oversees

the American Insurance Association’s operations; works with AIA’s board of directors to develop and guide the organization’s mission; recognized as one of the top lobbyists in Washington, DC; named by the National Journal as one of the 25 most influential women in Washington in 2013 Other professional roles: Board member, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety; served as a deputy assistant to President George H.W. Bush and as communications director for Newt Gingrich during his tenure as Speaker of the House Other accomplishments: Former chairwoman of the board, Bryce Harlow Foundation; speaker at Samford University, her alma mater Leigh Ann Pusey is one of the most prominent players in the insurance industry. She’s frequently quoted in the media, and is often consulted by policymakers and Wall Street leaders for her take on issues facing the P&C industry. In addition to her role as CEO of AIA, Pusey serves in a number of other roles in various organizations, and is member of the US Chamber of Commerce’s Committee of 100.

CINDY P. ROBINETT Managing partner SEACREST PARTNERS Recent business achievements: Managed

organic growth of more than 20% per year; oversees captive management of the firm’s top healthcare clients; oversees quality initiatives Other accomplishments: Treasurer, United Way; board member, Savannah Christian Prep; board member, University of Georgia Terry School; has earned CPCU and CIC certifications One of the founders of Seacrest Partners, Cindy P. Robinett has led the firm’s property-casualty division and served on its executive committee for a decade. Also active in her community, Robinett serves on a number of boards and committees.

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FEATURES

COVER STORY: ELITE WOMEN KERRI LANN Assistant vice president ROCKWOOD PROGRAMS Recent business achievements: Was instrumental in creating a

new E&O program in 2014; completed MLIS; early adopter of CHART-Exchange Other accomplishments: President, Kiwanis Club

“Kerri is a great underwriter and producer,” says Rockwood Programs’ Mark Lann. “She is organized, intelligent, knowledgeable and cares about her clients and job.”

KATHY POST President and CEO POST INSURANCE AND FINANCIAL Recent business achievements: Held a business consortium and seminar to

empower businesswomen in their respective fields; led and supervised several business and professional groups Other professional roles: FIAA member

SUZETTE TORRES Personal lines underwriting manager BURNS & WILCOX Recent business achievements: Has

spent seven consecutive years as Distinguished Producer of the Year and Top Producer of the Year for Burns & Wilcox; ranked as one of the leading underwriters for the company Other professional roles: Member of the Independent Insurance Agents of Houston Other accomplishments: Volunteers in local community; selected for the Kaufman Advanced Management Program “Suzette is building a successful insurance career and is a proven leader in the community, industry and company,” says Matthew Brady, vice president at Burns & Wilcox. “She’s a proven leader in sales, underwriting and management in a catastrophe-prone region of the country.”

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Other accomplishments: Sits on several boards, including the Sunrise Theatre, the

Treasure Coast Builders Association, Main Street Fort Pierce, the Education Foundation of St. Lucie and the Girl Scouts of Florida; member of the Economic Development Council and Port St. Lucie Business Women Kathy Post’s expansive personality and solid work ethic make her highly sought after by many nonprofits. And of course, her professional work is also stellar. “She has been a leader in many of the insurance organizations that she has been a part of, never shirking her responsibilities or delegating her tasks to others,” says Michelle Miller of Michelle Miller Insurance.

RANDI CIGELNIK Senior VP, corporate secretary and general counsel PROPERTY CASUALTY INSURERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA Recent business achievements: Responsible for PCI’s continued

strategic efforts to advance members’ advocacy efforts at the state, federal and global levels; led PCI’s efforts to challenge HUD’s Disparate Impact Rule as it applied to homeowners insurance, which resulted in a court decision vacating the rule in that application; formed a new general counsel committee A highly respected attorney in the international insurance market, Randi Cigelnik has handled insurance defense litigation, investigations and regulatory issues for more than 25 years. Before joining PCI, Cigelnik served as general counsel for AXIS Capital in Ireland and the UK. Prior to that, she spent 12 years with the ACE Group in Bermuda and London.

www.ibamag.com

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18/09/2015 5:24:04 AM

JEANNE BRANDONE Sales and training director EHEALTHAPP Recent business achievements:

Expanded eHealthApp into Texas, where she’s added 15 agencies, eight health insurance carriers and one general agency to the platform; created a ‘certified administrator training’ curriculum and trained 15 agencies from three states in the first year Other professional roles: Member, Texas Association of Health Underwriters; member, National Association of Health Underwriters; board member, Dallas Association of Health Underwriters; also creates and administers all social media for DAHU, earning her recognition by the NAHU Vanguard Council for innovation Other accomplishments: Serves as first vice regent for the John Abston Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution; owner of Autism Recovery Resources, a business that speaks to parent and teacher groups about practical ways to treat your child’s autism “Jeanne brings enthusiasm to every project she undertakes, and is always willing to volunteer to get the job done,” says Michelle Hardin of insurance brokerage Corporate Alternatives.

“Her background in marketing allows her to add value to any undertaking. She has helped us innovate with technology and is a trusted partner.”

SUSAN GOLLA VP and marketing account executive MCGRIFF, SEIBELS & WILLIAMS Recent business achievements:

Has been instrumental in bringing numerous school, church, quasi-government and municipality clients to the company over the last five years; helped many of those clients receive additional coverage at a lower cost Other professional roles:

CPCU; Texas governor for the CPCU Society; teaches the CPCU preparatory class Other accomplishments:

Involved in numerous fund and goods drives for local charities “Susan represents the quintessential professional in that she does all of these things ... as well as balancing it against the role and responsibilities of being a parent and spouse,” says Scot D’Arbonne of McLarens. “All of that is very difficult in this increasingly fast-paced world in which we work and reside.”

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18/09/2015 5:24:11 AM

FEATURES

COVER STORY: ELITE WOMEN SHANNON CLOONEN Director of risk management HERITAGE INSURANCE Recent business achievements: Oversees the risk management

strategies and reinsurance purchase for Heritage; in 2015, developed comprehensive risk management strategies and negotiated Heritage’s $1.8 billion reinsurance purchases; instrumental in making Heritage the fastestgrowing insurer in the US for the past two years Other professional roles: CPCU, ARM, ARe, ARC, AIM and AIS certifications; AIR

LAURA SHERMAN

certified catastrophe modeler

Founding partner BALDWIN KRYSTYN SHERMAN PARTNERS

Other accomplishments: Actively involved in fundraising for local charities

“Shannon has quickly become the go-to executive in our company, and is a guiding and mentoring our next generation of business leaders,” says Bruce Lucas, CEO of Heritage Insurance. “She is highly regarded by her peers both in and outside of Heritage and widely regarded a mentor to women in insurance industry.”

SHARON EMEK President and CEO WORK AT HOME VINTAGE EMPLOYEES Recent business achievements: Founded

WAHVE in 2010 to bridge the gap between insurance firms’ staffing needs and insurance professionals wanting to phase into retirement; currently provides staffing solutions for more than 100 insurance firms Other professional roles: Has served on numerous boards, including the Independent Insurance Agents of New York, Agents Council for Technology, the Center for Womens Business Research, the NYC Mayor’s Small Business Advisory Board and the IBM Small Business Research and Technology Advisory Council Other accomplishments: First woman to receive the IIABNY 1882 Fellow Award, the organization’s highest honor; first woman to receive the Sidney O. Smith Government Affairs Award from the IIABA; Helen Garvin Outstanding Achiever Award; National Promising Research Award (for her doctoral research); 2014 IBA Elite Woman; member of the 2015 IBA Hot 100 Prior to founding WAHVE in 2010, Sharon Emek was a partner at CBS Coverage Group, a regional full-service insurance agency. Emek also founded the Emek Group, which merged with CBS Coverage. Prior to joining the industry, Emek was a professor at Rutgers University, where she received her doctoral degree. A prolific public speaker on insurance, management and women’s business issues, Emek is often sought out by the media for her expertise. She’s appeared on CNN, CNBC, CBS and Lifetime and has been quoted by numerous periodicals, including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

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Recent business achievements:

Co-founded Baldwin Krystyn Sherman Partners in 2006 and Baldwin Risk Partners in 2012; leads the company’s private risk management practice and marketing efforts; instrumental in BKS Partners’ consistently industry-leading growth and superior client retention; consistent top producer of new business; instrumental in the firm’s numerous awards and recognition for excellence in insurance and as a workplace Other professional roles: Member of the founding advisory board for the Council for Insuring Private Clients; member, AIG Private Client Group National Council; vice president, Safeco Southeast Regional Advisory Council; student and instructor with the National Alliance for the Certified Personal Risk Manager [CPRM] designation; currently pursuing the inaugural Certified Advisor of Personal Insurance [CAPI] designation Other accomplishments: Authors articles for Worth magazine as a leading advisor on risk management topics; speaks at national forums and seminars; sits on the board of directors for Meals on Wheels of Tampa and the Children’s Dream Fund; member, Bank of Tampa Women Connected Advisory Board Laura Sherman recruited 14 of BKS Partners’ 23 private risk management team members from outside the industry. She’s also created a career path to bring professionals and recent graduates to the insurance business.

www.ibamag.com

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18/09/2015 5:24:18 AM

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LISA LEMANSKI Owner MEIERS LOMBARDINI LEMANSKI INSURANCE Recent business achievements:

Creates awareness videos to teach her customers about insurance issues; recognized as IBA Young Gun in 2014; instrumental in making her agency one of their largest carrier’s top 10 for new written business premium in western Michigan Other professional roles:

Member, Hasting Mutual Agents’ Advisory Panel for Michigan; member, Young Agents Council, Michigan Association of Independent Agents; member, Legislative Task Force, Michigan Association of Independent Agents; member, IIABA; spokesperson, Insuring MI Future Lisa Lemanski started her career as a commercial underwriter at Auto Owners Insurance. She later joined a family agency that needed to perpetuate and eventually became a partner. Since then, Lemanski has rebranded the agency with a new logo and a dynamic new website, and has helped increase the agency’s revenues by more than 40%. Lemanski also has been active in the Michigan Association of Independent Agents’ Young Agents Council, developing a social media plan that incorporates videos featuring personal stories from young agents. She also mentors and recruits young agents to join the YAC.

www.ibamag.com

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18/09/2015 5:24:32 AM

FEATURES

COVER STORY: ELITE WOMEN STEFANIE BATES

LAURIE BRANCH

Commercial lines vice president VENTURE PACIFIC INSURANCE SERVICES

President THE IROQUOIS GROUP Recent business achievements: Has helped expand The Iroquois Group’s network of

Recent business achievements: Led

the company in new business submissions in 2014; worked with carrier partners to establish an innovative platform for quoting and handling the insurance needs of the action sports industry; had the company’s highest client retention in 2014

independent insurance agencies by about 650 member agencies in the last five years Other accomplishments: President, Olean School Board; member, St. Bonaventure

University board of trustees; associate professor, St. Bonaventure University; New York State Women of Excellence Award Laurie Branch has shepherded The Iroquois Group since 1984. Under her leadership, the company has grown to include more than 2,250 member agencies in 41 states.

Other professional roles: Member,

DANIELLE WILLIAMSON

IBA West

Director of operations NETWORKED INSURANCE AGENTS

Other accomplishments: Member of

her local school board; member, Family Assistance Ministry; served on the Pat Bates campaign for the California Senate An innovator and leader in the insurance industry, Stefanie Bates is a tactical coverage expert. She’s also a top sales performer, racking up $5 million in written premium last year.

Recent business achievements: Redesigned two

company websites to reflect a more modern, professional style; developed new self-service options for members to submit business and service requests; has conducted multiple ‘deep dive’ studies on workflows for Networked Insurance Agents’ account management, processing, service and sales teams; led the implementation of a workforce management platform that provides an evenly balanced workload to account management team members Other accomplishments: Currently pursuing a master’s in economics at Cal Poly Pomona

“Danielle demonstrates an admirable level of confidence and professionalism, not only communicating well-thought-out ideas, but also delivering on those ideas,” says Natalie Flightner, marketing director for Networked Insurance Agents. “She is a true motivator of change at Networked. For more than four years, Danielle has made her mark across marketing, operations and service.”

JENNIFER LANDON President, CEO and financial advisor JOURNEY FINANCIAL SERVICES

Recent business achievements: Has

repeatedly qualified for the top echelon in her FMO; among the top AUM producers in her RIA Other professional roles: Ed Slott

Elite Master Advisor; member, National Ethics Association; Better Business Bureau affiliate

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Jennifer Landon has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily and Fox Business News. Her expertise has made her the go-to financial professional when local television and radio news programs need to clarify national financial stories. Landon is also an accomplished speaker, presenting at conferences around the nation.

www.ibamag.com

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18/09/2015 5:24:33 AM

NOELLE CODISPOTI Executive director GAMMA IOTA SIGMA

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Other accomplishments: Secretary,

Pennsbury Athletic Association; strong supporter of her alma mater, Temple University

Recent business achievements:

Named executive director of Gamma Iota Sigma in 2011; has more than doubled the organization’s student members, from 1,170 to 2,500+; increased the organization’s national presence; has multiplied the programs Gamma Iota Sigma provides to its students Other professional roles: Member, RIMS Student Advisory Council; member, Griffith Insurance Education Foundation Leadership Council; member, Gamma Iota Sigma board of directors

Five years ago, the executive board of Gamma Iota Sigma, the international risk management, insurance and actuarial fraternity, recognized that the organization needed a drastic revamping. They tapped Noelle Codispoti, a successful underwriting manager, for the job. Under her leadership, the fraternity has improved the quality of students entering the insurance industry after graduation, and now boasts more than 60 chapters across the nation. Widely recognized as a leader in the industry, Codispoti is a sought-after speaker and panelist at industry events.

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18/09/2015 5:24:42 AM

FEATURES

COVER STORY: ELITE WOMEN LISA BAGLIO-CONZA Area senior vice president ARTHUR J. GALLAGHER & CO. Recent business achievements: Has increased visibility of Gallagher’s higher education program; educates clients and prospects about the benefits of engaging a multicultural and multi-generational workforce; a frequent contributor to higher education journals; sought-after panelist on college and university forums for her expertise on employee and labor relations, strategic accreditation planning, faculty governance, leadership, organizational development and other education issues

Other professional roles: Has served as the chair of the eastern region board of the College and University Professionals Association; member, National Association of Professional Women Other accomplishments: Volunteer basketball coach for the

Catholic Youth Organization and the National AAU League Lisa Baglio-Conza is one of Arthur J. Gallagher’s heavy hitters. “Lisa has developed a unique skill set by having experience sitting on both sides of the table in higher education,” says Kristi Janca, Gallagher’s eastern region marketing director. “This background lends credibility to her consulting and establishes trust and lasting relationships.”

LINDSAY HOLDEN

AGNES NINES

VP and New England regional executive PURE GROUP OF INSURANCE COMPANIES

Absence management practice leader, Mid-Atlantic region ARTHUR J. GALLAGHER & CO.

Recent business achievements: At the end of 2014, Holden’s

territory boasted 4,849 policyholders, including about 1,400 new ones; her territory’s annual retention rate hit 96.9% at the end of 2014; helped lead the launches of PURE in several New England states, including the selection and onboarding of producers and hiring of key PURE staff; was instrumental in helping the company introduce an automobile offering in Massachusetts that receives consistently high marks from producers for its ease of doing business Other professional roles: Member, Private Risk Management Association; member,

Boston Estate Planning Council; member, Women in Insurance New England “Lindsay is a tremendous collaborator and has a knack for aligning her diverse team – sales, underwriting, claims, risk management – around a common vision,” says Mark Galante, PURE’s chief marketing officer. “She’s a role model for our industry.”

BRENDA GUFFEY President CTC TRANSPORTATION INSURANCE AGENCY Recent business achievements: Started – and built from the ground up – a leading

insurance company in the niche market of small-fleet transportation; recruited and hired 65 employees while implementing the systems needed to make the business thrive Other professional roles: Member, NAPSLO

With more than 30 years in the small-fleet and owner-operator market, Brenda Guffey had the expertise to develop CTC Transportation Insurance Agency into a leading provider of small-fleet transportation insurance. Guffey is a former board member of the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association, the country’s largest truck insurance association. An Army vet, Guffey is also a ‘black-powder marksman’ who enjoys shooting old-fashioned muskets.

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Recent business achievements: Has

become Gallagher’s premier resource for expertise in disability, total absence management, FMLA, ADAAA, state and other jurisdictional leaves, as well as absence compliance; recognized as a leader in helping organizations address absence management Other professional roles: Member, Disability Management Employer Coalition; serves on producer advisory councils for ACE USA, Aetna International and Cigna Global Health Other accomplishments: Volunteers for Aid for Friends and the Drueding Center; fundraiser for the American Heart Association and Komen Race for the Cure; participates in Gallagher Mid-Atlantic Cares, the company’s social responsibility initiative, which has donated 6,000 pounds of food to area food banks and fulfills holiday wish lists for ill and disadvantaged youth In addition to her focus on absence management, Agnes Nines and her team have spearheaded programs to develop consulting expertise to meet the needs of globally mobile expatriate plans. She and a colleague also launched an internal initiative to focus on delivering comprehensive business travel solutions to Gallagher clients. Nines also finds time to mentor new insurance professionals.

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18/09/2015 5:24:49 AM

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INGA BEALE CEO LLOYD’S OF LONDON Recent business achievements: In 2014, became the first female CEO in Lloyd’s of London’s more than 325-year history

Inga Beale made history last year when she became the first woman to head up Lloyd’s of London, the world’s oldest insurance market.

Prior to joining Lloyd’s, Beale served as the group CEO at Canopius, a prominent Lloyd’s managing agent. She began her career at the Prudential Assurance Company in London in 1984, and also has served in various underwriting management and executive roles at GE, Convernium (now part of the SCOR Group) and Zurich Insurance Group.

www.ibamag.com

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18/09/2015 5:24:59 AM

FEATURES

COVER STORY: ELITE WOMEN PETRONILA HARTMAN Senior vice president ARCH INSURANCE COMPANY Recent business achievements:

Developed and oversaw implemen­ tation of a multiline IT policy administration environment for a multibillion-dollar company; developed Arch’s business process outsourcing model, resulting in millions of dollars in annual savings to the company

KELLY BONANNO

Other professional roles: Member,

Area executive vice president ARTHUR J. GALLAGHER & CO.

APIW

Recent business achievements:

Other accomplishments: Active participant in fundraising activities

Played a critical role in the growth of Gallagher’s voluntary benefits business over the last five years; has been recognized as the premier voluntary benefits specialist in the eastern region, helping to grow revenue and drive retention

LORI RODRIGUEZ SVP, AmWINS Access Insurance Services AMWINS

Other accomplishments:

Foundation board member and golf tournament chair, Fairport Baptist Homes; winner of the Paul A. Vick Philanthropy Award; her leadership on the Swing for Seniors Golf Tournament resulted in sold-out events in 2014 and 2015 “Kelly is a truly exceptional benefits professional. She’s a strategic partner for her clients, and approaches every organization she works with the same degree of respect and innovative attitude as her highest-revenue clients,” says Dan Martin of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. “She has excelled at growing her book of business throughout the country, and she specializes in engaging regional Gallagher offices to identify ways to grow revenue and retain clients through voluntary benefits. That said, Kelly’s commitment to volunteerism and family must be granted equal weight. She goes to great efforts to balance all three, and she has achieved professional success while putting her family and community first.”

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Recent business achievements: Has

consistently increased her sales production by more than 8% per year for the past five years; brought in nearly $7.8 million in sales volume in 2014; took over one of AmWINS’ largest accounts Other professional roles: Member,

IIABA Other accomplishments: Integral to

the Redondo Beach/AmWINS Summer of Service projects; works with several organizations supporting the Special Olympics; participates annually in Soccer for Hope, a soccer camp for children; raises funds for City of Hope for cancer research Lori Rodriguez has worked for the same insurance wholesaler for more than 27 years, and her knowledge and dedication have helped transform a California personal lines territory into a nationwide platform. Rodriguez has consistently grown her production each year; last year alone, she racked up almost $7.8 million in sales volume.

for nonprofits in the Raleigh, NC, and Jersey City, NJ, areas, including Military Mission in Action and the Daniel Center for Math and Science; recently named one of the top businesswomen in the Philippines Petronila Hartman is a “forwardthinking professional who blends the right balance of futuristic vision with practical implementation,” says Steven Hartman, president and CEO of Stonewood Insurance.

Hartman’s unique offshoring model provides Arch Insurance with full back-office capabilities ranging from finance to IT, and has given Arch greater stability, lower attrition, and more control over process and output.

KIM CURCIO Executive vice president, AmWINS Brokerage of the Mid-Atlantic AMWINS Recent business achievements:

Expert in placing property coverage for large national accounts; her team recently took over one of AmWINS’ largest accounts Other professional roles:

Member, National Association of Professional Women Other accomplishments: Works with The Children’s Specialized Hospital, an organization noted for in- and outpatient pediatric services as well as long-term care services for children “Kim continues to play a key role in her local office, mentoring individuals who are relatively new to the industry or looking for advice on how to advance their careers,” says AmWINS marketing coordinator Allison Day. Curcio’s focus on mentorship earned her the company’s prestigious Gene Eisenmann Mentor Recognition Award for serving as a positive role model, teacher and supportive resource.

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18/09/2015 5:25:29 AM

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SUSAN L. COMBS President WOMEN IN INSURANCE & FINANCIAL SERVICES [WIFS] Recent business achievements: The youngest ever president of WIFS; as owner of boutique insurance firm Combs & Company, oversees all aspects of business at the company, including producing, marketing, human resources, account management and customer service Other professional roles: Expert witness on the Affordable Care Act; member, Allay Inc. advisory board; member, LifeHealth Pro advisory board; national speaker Other accomplishments: Pearl Circle of Excellence Award; SmartCEO magazine Brava

Award; WIFS Leadership Recognition Society; NUL Industry Elite Award for Best Rising Star; named to NAIFA “4 under 40�

Susan L. Combs is the 2014/2015 president of WIFS, the only national industry association with services developed by women exclusively for women. The organization offers educational webinars, mentoring, coaching services, chapter meetings, an annual conference and more to help women at every stage of their careers in the insurance industry.

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FEATURES

COVER STORY: ELITE WOMEN BETH GARDNER

ADELE HAPWORTH

JESSICA L. KREIDER

Director of operations COOK MARAN & ASSOCIATES

COO THE AMERICAN EQUITY UNDERWRITERS

Vice president, personal lines CAPITAL INSURANCE & BONDING SERVICES

Recent business achievements:

Led integration team during the merger of Cook, Hall & Hyde with Maran Corporate Risk Associates in 2012, including key decisions on automation platforms, staffing, internal procedure, quality management, IT and human resources Other accomplishments: Past president, Water Mill Community Club; elder and head of financial advisory team, First Presbyterian Church of Southampton In addition to overseeing operations at Cook Maran & Associates, Beth Gardner has established very successful quality management and internship programs at the company. “She is an exceptional leader who manages multiple projects with remarkable ease,” says Len Scioscia, president and CEO of Cook Maran & Associates. “She is exceedingly diligent in bringing priorities to a conclusion.

Her leadership style is inclusive, creative, thorough and always right on schedule.”

Recent business achievements:

Contributed to bringing AEU’s claims service in-house; helped create a marine employers liability program; helped further the professional development of the account management department Other accomplishments: Has served as a Big Sister for the last four years; serves as a mentor to students at the University of Virginia As COO for The American Equity Under­ writers, Adele Hapworth has been instru­ mental in the company’s growth over the last five years. Her focus on building an internal culture of collaboration, teamwork and accountability has helped AEU deliver on its promises to brokers and members. “While Adele is not a producer, she is responsible for getting the right people involved in writing the business,” says colleague Leslie McNiece.

“She credits her team with the success they’ve seen in the past five years and is fully committed to her role in supporting and helping them in any way.”

Started and ran an agency from scratch; built the business into a $1 million-plus agency in under a year while writing more than $70,000 in life premium; set up safety and loss prevention programs for personal clients Other professional roles: Member, National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors; member, Independent Insurance Agents of Virginia Other accomplishments: Volunteers for senior citizen programs; started program in rural West Virginia to provide winter coats and Christmas gifts for underprivileged children In addition to managing personal lines for Capital Insurance & Bonding, Jessica Kreider is a partner at Kreider Recruitment & Consulting, a national recruitment firm based in Virginia. The firm offers fullservice consulting and recruitment, focusing on construction, telecommunications, information technology, financial services, healthcare, and oil and gas.

AMANDA DUNCAN

Other accomplishments: Has completed multiple half and full

President PARTNERONE ENVIRONMENTAL

marathons, including the Boston Marathon in 2012

Recent business achievements:

Became president of PartnerOne Environmental, a division of Beacon Hill Associates, in 2012; has grown the company’s underwriting division into a nationally recognized environmental market; has used her expertise in the environmental marketplace to add new producers and carriers to the program; under her leadership, PartnerOne Environmental wrote 1,600 policies in 2014 for a total sales volume of $16 million

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Recent business achievements:

Amanda Duncan has been instrumental in the development and rapid growth of PartnerOne Environmental. With more than 19 years of industry experience, she’s also a mentor to other women in the insurance business. “Whether it’s working with experienced underwriters and helping them step into managerial roles or teaching an insurance newcomer how to be a productive member of the team, she works constantly to move all of the people working with her forward in their careers,” says Jamie Lewis, assistant vice president at Beacon Hill Associates. “Amanda is very accessible and open to helping the women in her organization.”

www.ibamag.com

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18/09/2015 5:25:44 AM

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KARI DYBDAHL

VIVIAN GEE

Vice president AMERICAN RISK MANAGEMENT RESOURCES

SVP, national field underwriting officer PURE GROUP OF INSURANCE COMPANIES

Recent business achievements: Came in third on

IBA’s Top Producers list for 2015; presenter at Crawford Contractor Connection Convention and RIA Convention; contributing author to restoration industry trade journals; currently pursuing CPCU designation Other professional roles: Member, Independent Insurance Agents of Wisconsin Emerging Leaders; member, Society of Cleaning and Restoration Technicians; member, International Cleaning and Restoration Associations One of IBA’s 2015 top producers, Kari Dybdahl has only been in the industry for about eight years, but has already made her mark, racking up more than $3.6 million in sales volume last year. “The most important thing is to find insurance coverage lines you are excited about,” Dybdahl says. “That excitement will turn into passion, and once you are passionate about what you are selling, the success just falls into place.”

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Recent business achievements: One of the first

executives hired by PURE’s founding team; has helped PURE develop high-quality book of business Other professional roles: Member, Private

Risk Management Association Other accomplishments: Regular supporter of

Autism Speaks Vivian Gee leads a business that generated $80 million in written premiums by the end of 2014. Today, Gee’s underwriting organization is on pace to write approximately $150 million in new premiums, helping PURE achieve its eighth consecutive year of at least 40% growth.

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18/09/2015 5:26:43 AM

FEATURES

COVER STORY: ELITE WOMEN LENISE ZIKA Principal CLOSSON INSURANCE Recent business achievements: Identified sexual abuse as a leading risk in

churches and schools and designed a program to help parents, teachers and students reduce the risk, identify if there is something going on, and take action; brought Closson Insurance’s retention rate to 98% Other accomplishments: Member, Florida Nursery Growers and Landscapers Association; member, Florida Recyclers Association; member, Church Network Association Lenise Zika has sold insurance for more than 30 years, and many of her first clients are still with her today. Zika’s hard work and determination serve as an example to everyone at Closson Insurance. “She helps us remember that there is more to insurance than just a contract,” says a colleague.

LYNN D. MINTZ

JACQUELINE SCHAENDORF

LEASHA WEST

Secretary/treasurer, administrator AVI RISK MANAGEMENT & INSURANCE BROKERS

Chief operations officer INSURANCE HOUSE

Founder and president WEST FINANCIAL GROUP

Recent business achievements:

Has been AVI’s lead partner in establishing training programs for the staff; oversees more than 30 employees; under her leadership, the company has seen a 15% growth in revenue for the last three years and is on track to exceed 15% growth for 2015; lead account manager for approximately $600,000 in revenue accounts Other professional roles:

Holds CIC and CRM designations; sits on AIG Agents Council Other accomplishments: Active in the Heart Gallery of New Mexico “Lynn Mintz is one of the most professional ladies I know in any kind of business,” says AVI president Bill Fortner. “She has a heart of gold for helping people in and out of our community. I believe she is one of the most respected insurance professionals in the state of New Mexico.”

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Recent business achievements: Drives day-to-day execution of Insurance House’s strategy for profitable growth; responsible for the operations and financial performance of the company and all of its subsidiaries; also serves as president of Southern General Insurance Company and executive vice president of Insurance House Holdings; has led significant growth in NAPSLO educational offerings, including the addition of NAPSLO’s first two online training courses and the NAPSLO surplus lines training program Other professional roles: Treasurer and board member, NAPSLO; co-chair, NAPSLO Education Committee; NAPSLO Management Instructor; participates in various committees and panels for other industry organizations, including the Georgia Insurers Insolvency Pool Board and PCI

“Jacque is a tremendous leader and a stellar person all around,” says Brady Kelley, executive director of NAPSLO. “She is dedicated to developing talent for the surplus lines industry and dedicates an incredible amount of time to her volunteer work for NAPSLO and its advocacy of careers in the insurance industry to build the next generation of talent and leadership. She is looked to as a leader within the surplus lines industry and within NAPSLO.”

Recent business achievements: Pioneering a

new concept in insurance: offering policies with tiny premiums to cover deductibles of regular policies Other professional roles:

Multi-year member, Million Dollar Round Table; member, Women in Insurance & Financial Services, which named her to its Circle of Excellence Other accomplishments:

Board member, Junior League of Kalamazoo; member, Pretty Lake Camp and Women Marines Association; awarded President’s Volunteer Service Award by President Obama A decorated Marine Corps veteran, Leasha West is the 10th generation in a military family that traces its roots back to the Revolutionary War. She’s also a powerful force in her community, active in numerous local organizations, and is the founder of the Veteran Aid Task Force, a volunteer community service outreach.

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Founded Sierra Specialty Insurance Services and continues to grow the company’s production each year; has served on several insurance company advisory committees; highly respected in the surplus lines market and frequently sought out for her expertise Other professional roles: Board of directors, AAMGA; co-chair, AAMGA Diversity Committee; liaison to the board for AAMGA

Governmental Committee; former member, AAMGA Education Committee; member, NAPSLO; treasurer, CIWA Other accomplishments: Member, Clovis Chamber of Commerce; active in the Well Spring Academy’s support of charitable causes

in Rwanda “Kathy is always thinking about the next step and how to get there,” says Cathy Temple of Sierra Specialty Insurance Services. “Kathy is a great role model and mentors young professionals who are interested in success.”

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FEATURES

COVER STORY: ELITE WOMEN KERI LOPEZ

REBECCA BOCEK

Chief operating officer, western region benefits ASCENSION INSURANCE

President and national sales director, Stop Loss Insurance Services AMWINS

Recent business achievements:

Achieved top production honors in 2013 and 2014; undertook a financial analysis that reduced operating expenses by nearly 50%; helped transform a business unit that was losing more than $1 million per year when she arrived to forecast a profit of more than $1 million Other professional roles: Frequently sought out as a speaker and guest lecturer by trade groups; a regular participant on insurance advisory boards; board member, NCHRA; NCHRA Volunteer of the Year Award Other accomplishments: Speaks on HR issues at the University of California Berkeley Extension; guest speaker at HR classes at Cal State East Bay “Keri has quickly become a top leader in the firm,” says Lee Paige, Ascension’s vice president of business integration. “There is no question her exceptional skills will be a major contributor to the company’s growth.”

Recent business achievements:

Increased stop loss business to $140 million in premium; implemented sales plans for her team that resulted in an increase in more than $70 million in premium last year Other professional roles: Member, California Association of Health Underwriters; member, Golden Gate Association of Health Underwriters; member, Health Care Administrators Association; member, National Association of Health Underwriters; member, Northern California Employee Benefits Association Other accomplishments: Volunteer for Loaves and Fishes; serves on the Heritage Soccer Golf Committee Rebecca Bocek founded Health Benefits Solutions and grew the company to $32 million in premium. When HBS was acquired by AmWINS Group, Bocek, a sought-after expert in the field, stayed on.

INDEX BY COMPANY COMPANY

PAGE NAME

COMPANY

PAGE NAME

American Insurance Association

25

Leigh Ann Pusey

Insurance House

38

Jacqueline Schaendorf

American Risk Management Resources

37

Kari Dybdahl

Journey Financial Services

30

Jennifer Landon

AmWINS

40

Rebecca Bocek

Lloyd's of London

33

Inga Beale

AmWINS

34

Kim Curcio

McGriff, Seibels & Williams

27

Susan Golla

AmWINS

34

Lori Rodriguez

Meiers Lombardini Lemanski Insurance

29

Lisa Lemanski

Arch Insurance Company

35

Petronila Hartman

Networked Insurance Agents

30

Danielle Williamson

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

32

Lisa Baglio-Conza

PartnerOne Environmental

36

Amanda Duncan

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

34

Kelly Bonanno

Post Insurance and Financial

26

Kathy Post

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

32

Agnes Nines

Property Casualty Insurers Association of America

26

Randi Cigelnik

Ascension Insurance

40

Keri Lopez

PURE Group of Insurance Companies

37

Vivian Gee

AVI Risk Management & Insurance Brokers

38

Lynn Mintz

PURE Group of Insurance Companies

32

Lindsay Holden

Baldwin Krystyn Sherman Partners

28

Laura Sherman

Rockwood Programs

26

Kerri Lann

Burns & Wilcox

26

Suzette Torres

Seacrest Partners

25

Cindy Robinett

Capital Insurance & Bonding Services

36

Jessica Kreider

Sierra Specialty Insurance Services

39

Kathy Schroeder

Closson Insurance

38

Lenise Zika

The American Equity Underwriters

36

Adele Hapworth

Cook Maran & Associates

26

Beth Gardner

The Iroquois Group

30

Laurie Branch

CTC Transportation Insurance Agency

32

Brenda Guffey

Venture Pacific Insurance Services

30

Stefanie Bates

eHealthApp

27

Jeanne Brandone

West Financial Group

38

Leasha West

Gamma Iota Sigma

31

Noelle Codispoti

Women in Insurance & Financial Services

35

Susan Combs

Heritage Insurance

28

Shannon Cloonen

Work At Home Vintage Employees

28

Sharon Emek

40

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5,500 Member Agencies Signed

celebrating

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1995-2015

Approaching $6 Billion of In-Force Written Premium

Visit us online at siaa.net or email us at info@siaa.net

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FEATURES

CONSTRUCTION

A booming business The construction industry is white-hot once again, opening up the market for producers who know the business to cash in ON HIS way to work each day in downtown Chicago, Bryant Steele gets a visceral reminder of just how dynamic things are right now in the construction industry.

Ever since the economy started to revive in earnest, the whole city has been one big construction zone. Long-dormant projects are getting a new lease on life, and new projects seem to spring daily from every square inch of developable land.

“I only walk six blocks to work, and on my walk, I pass three cranes every day,” says the brokerage leader at Burns & Wilcox. “Obviously people are building big buildings, and construction is up. And the market is up.”

The building boom has naturally carried over to Steele’s work – he focuses on the excess and surplus insurance market in Burns & Wilcox’s construction practice.

“I would say that across the Midwest, we are seeing way more business than we were two years ago when it comes to construction projects,” Steele says. This includes everything from “your more vanilla projects” to edgy, complex loft renovations in historic commercial buildings that often land in the E&S sector.

“People don’t want to just sit on the space anymore,” Steele says. “Every square foot is now taken advantage of – especially in major markets like Chicago and New York.”

Steele also has seen a huge influx of construction – and construction insurance business – in his hometown of Detroit, where historic renovation is an especially vibrant class of business.

“What used to be a really run-down city has a lot of life in it right now,” Steele says.

“And I think that redoing these buildings

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is only making things better. For every one they finish, there is more and more excitement for the next.”

In short, it’s an exciting time to be in the construction sector. “It’s awesome – absolutely awesome,” Steele says. “Insuring construction right now is perfect. It really is.”

The industry statistics back him up.

According to the 2015 Dodge Construction Outlook, total US construction starts for 2015 were estimated to rise to $612 billion, up from $564 billion in 2014, and the trend is slated to continue.

With the exception of electric utilities

TOP 5 US CONSTRUCTION MARKETS TO WATCH Houston Austin San Francisco Denver Dallas/Fort Worth Source: Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2015, Urban Land Institute and PwC US

and manufacturing plant construction – which are on the decline – all markets in the construction sector are seeing increases in building this year, stoking the industry’s

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appetite for appropriate insurance policies.

Construction insurance covers improvements to real property and the services of the professionals who are executing those improvements before the property is put to its intended use.

Key clients include project developers and investors, contractors and subcontractors, owner/general contractors, real estate investment trusts, public works, sovereign wealth funds that invest in real estate – basically anybody who develops and builds property.

The construction sector can essentially be broken down into project business and practice business. Some insurance carriers specialize in one side or the other, and some have products around both distribution points. While there are many carriers in the business, the larger, more complex risks are generally handled by industry giants like AIG, Zurich and ACE.

Key risk exposures Despite risk-control improvements, construction remains a dangerous business, accounting for the third most fatal work injuries of any sector after transportation and warehousing, according to a recent ACE report entitled “Building a Proactive Safety Culture in the Construction Industry.”

Because of this exposure, “the number-one cost arising out of a construction project with regard to risk management is worker’s comp-driven costs and injury on the job site,” says Ben Beauvais, executive vice president of casualty and construction at Ironshore.

After workers’ safety, the second largest risk exposure on a construction project is damage to the project during the course of construction. This exposure is covered by short-term builder’s risk insurance – coverage that protects a person’s or organization’s insurable interest in materials, fixtures and/or equipment being used in the construction or renovation of a building or structure, in the event of physical loss or damage from a covered cause.

Rounding out the top construction risk exposures are adjacent liability property damage requiring third-party coverage,

design challenges and disputes, and defective construction issues.

Hungry for high hazards Norman-Spencer Agency has carved out a niche in the construction sector by focusing on three main construction-driven, industryexclusive MGA programs: ready-mix concrete, transit pumpers and a crane program. It also offers a monoline auto program specifically designed to provide commercial auto coverage to contractors, as well as a contractor tools and equipment program.

Its wholesale construction insurance department, meanwhile, was created as a catch-all for all of the submissions that don’t fit its true program business – which, these days, adds up to quite a lot.

“Any type of commercial contractor, steel erector, steel fabricator, demolition contractor, street/road or blasting contractor – those are all classes of business that wind up with us pretty well lately,” says Brian Harrold, a construction risk insurance specialist at NormanSpencer who focuses on the wholesale side.

“Those are hard classes to place elsewhere.

Typical companies you would consider to have more of a higher hazard exposure are the ones we are best at making sense of.”

By building new relationships and getting new products on board with new carriers, wholesale is now one of the division’s largest books of business. “There was an appetite for these kinds of products that wasn’t being served before we jumped in,” Harrold says.

The specialty requires a knack for thinking outside the box and spotting opportunity where others just see risk.

“Often times you are thinking of the general liability exposures associated with blowing things up or knocking them down,” Harrold says. But actually, he stresses, opportunities can be found by evaluating these activities through a more multifaceted lens.

For example, “with the demolition guys, you might have a fleet of 15 or 20 dump trucks going to and from the work site to pick up the debris,” thus providing an

PROJECTED GROWTH BY SECTOR IN 2015

+15%

Commercial building

+15%

Single family housing

+9%

Institutional building

+9%

Multifamily housing

+5%

Public works construction Source: 2015 Dodge Construction Outlook

opportunity to place GL and auto coverage together.

It’s also important to look beyond destructive stereotypes associated with high-risk construction business classes, Harrold says, pointing out that blasting and demolition work is actually highly regulated and conducted by true experts in the field.

Industry trends As the construction industry has revived, carriers that pulled back during the recession are now flooding back into the marketplace, driving capacity to an all-time high.

This has pushed rates down, which can be a little frustrating for a broker, but “the abundance of sales opportunities make up for it,” Steele says.

Being on the E&S side of the equation also helps with the capacity conundrum.

“Even with all the capacity in the world, some of those very large standard markets aren’t going to want to insure some of the things that the excess and surplus carriers will,” Steele says.

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FEATURES

CONSTRUCTION TOP CONSTRUCTION INSURANCE PRODUCTS & SERVICES Primary casualty for contractor’s practice programs Worker’s compensation General liability

TARGET CLASSES IN THE CONSTRUCTION SECTOR • Commercial general contractors • Commercial trade contractors • Infrastructure construction • Street and road contractors • Institutional construction • Commercial building construction • Municipal/DOT projects • Trade contractors • Wrap-ups

Commercial auto Primary casualty for wrap-ups and other project-specific risks Construction risk Contractor’s equipment Environmental Umbrella/excess liability insurance for the construction industry Construction industry risk management Professional liability

It is also apparent that although the construction industry is rebounding across the country and throughout many different business classes, it is happening more so in certain segregated areas.

For example, “we are seeing a lot of new condo exposure in south Florida,” Harrold says. While this presents an opportunity for insurance sales, it is also a very tough exposure to make sense of because there are multiple owners – and thus multiple potential claimants if something goes wrong – within a single structure.

Even so, Harrold says, “we would rather be a part of it than not be a part of it. That’s the biggest hurdle we run into on the wholesale side – we are constantly keeping our eye out for the next product. If you truly want an exposure that you line up

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well with, you want to be a part of that next hot product.”

The construction insurance industry endured some spectacular losses last year, which have helped the E&S market maintain rate. Specifically, three large apartment complexes nearing completion in San Francisco, Houston and Boston burned completely to the ground, resulting in losses in the $100 million-plus range.

“That actually has kept the frame construction market in E&S because those huge losses are scaring the retail space and the standard markets,” Steele says.

As it turns out, fire is the number-one loss exposure for a frame construction project. Often, these fires are the inadvertent aftermath of welders who leave the job site before their project has cooled down.

Carriers are responding by putting hot works programs in place – insisting that whenever someone finishes a welding project, they remain on site with a fire extinguisher for 30 minutes or longer until the hot metal has cooled off.

“The industry has been more proactive in the last six months in really mandating these hot works programs,” Steele says.

Construction defects legislation also continues to be a driving factor in the construction insurance marketplace.

Plaintiff groups are challenging both courts and legislatures on a state-by-state basis to broaden the interpretation of CGL policies to provide coverage for defective construction.

Interpretation of a construction defect varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

New Jersey, Connecticut and South Carolina have all recently seen legislative actions driven by pro-plaintiff groups.

“That’s definitely something from an insurance carrier perspective that is a challenge for us as we look out across the country,” Beauvais says. “In particular, the fact that we could face changing legal assumptions on multi-year project policies requires careful consideration when underwriting project risk.”

Another notorious pitfall of the construction sector can be found in the city and state of New York, where action over claims has caused many carriers to exit the state. The problem stems from sections of the New York Labor Law, which establish that a building owner and general contractor can be held fully responsible for an injured worker’s accident and the injuries sustained in that accident, even though their actions did not directly cause the accident.

While intended to provide added protections for injured workers, the laws are burdensome for project owners and general contractors and anathema to many carriers.

Words of wisdom There can be millions of dollars at stake in the construction sector if you don’t get things right, so Steele recommends taking extra time to comb through complicated policies to make sure insureds are adequately covered.

“The last think you want to do is open up your client to a loss where they thought they were covered for something and it turns out they were not,” he says.

Risk management is just as important as proper underwriting.

“Depending on the size of the project, the contractor or owner might not have full-time risk management,” Steele says. “So you really have to put your risk manager hat on and do that for your clients. And don’t be afraid to utilize the resources of a wholesaler or a large standard market carrier,” he adds.

It’s also important to be well-versed in state and federal regulations pertaining to the construction industry; the statute of limitations for construction litigation in

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some states is 10 years or longer, Beauvais notes.

A lot of times, getting a tricky account underwritten by a potentially reluctant carrier comes down to asking the right questions and really getting a breakdown of what the insured does, Harrold says.

“Say your client is a steel erection/ fabrication company with gross sales of $5 million, but only a million dollars of their $5 million comes from the higher-risk steel erection,” he says. “The other $4 million is derived from steel fabrication, which is a very easy exposure to make sense of because they are fabricating in their metal shop. Just asking the right questions and getting an underwriter a really good breakdown of the insurance exposures could get them a better rate.”

GET TO KNOW BRYANT STEELE OF BURNS & WILCOX CONSTRUCTION PRACTICE Bryant Steele has built his career in the construction insurance marketplace from the ground up. He started out working for a large standard market carrier before moving to Aon’s construction practice group, where he worked on wrap-ups, OCIPs, CCIPs and a large condo program. From Aon, he went on to work for Willis’ construction practice group, where he focused on large public entities. Finally, he left Willis to run a team of brokers specializing in property insurance at Burns & Wilcox, where he still works today.

“I love insurance, which sounds very cheesy. I’ve never had more fun in insurance than I have on the E&S side. I like to think I am still fairly young, in my 30s. It’s exciting. There are so many projects that come on so fast, and you always have to be on your toes. You have to obviously be proactive in knowing what’s going on around you, but you also have to be very reactive. Everything that comes to you is kind of a rush. We are the last resort. And we know that.”

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FEATURES

AGENCY INSIGHT

Howard W. Phillips & Co. One of the largest privately owned independent insurance agencies in the Mid-Atlantic region, HWP Insurance has enjoyed an average 12.5% annual growth rate since 2006. President Michael A. Cauley reflects on what makes his agency thrive IBA: How important do you think it is for an agency to have a commitment to specialization? Why does it matter?

Michael A. Cauley: For us, it’s more of a collaborative effort with our partner carriers.

We primarily focus our efforts on what our carriers are specializing in and try to mirror our marketing efforts toward their efforts.

This approach allows us to bring organic business opportunities to our carriers on which they already have buy-in. By coupling that with an internal discussion on whether this risk is truly looking to change, our acquisition rate doubled.

IBA: How have you been able to build up your various specializations? How have you built this into your culture?

MAC: We sit down with our partner carriers every December and review specific accounts we will be prospecting. Each agent will discuss in detail his or her own business plan with our carriers. We developed our nonprofit and restaurant niches, for example, because we have five or six carriers that were leading that marketplace, and we realized we should be able to win these accounts if we learn that business practice.

That’s also the reason we have a large government contracting book of business.

We have four or five carriers that truly understand the international portion of this risk, and it allows us to create a competitive edge

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over the competition.

In addition, we encourage our sales team to identify their personal interests or hobbies and to create a specialization around their interest. For example, we have one broker who enjoys politics and has created a niche around Political Action Committees (PACs), and another who speaks several languages and writes a bunch of embassies and foreign consulates. He speaks Arabic, which allows him to pick up a lot of Middle Eastern clients.

IBA: What do you think makes you stand out as an agency?

MAC: That’s easy – our people. We have been recognized by the Big I as a Best Practices Agency since 2007. [Our employees] are extremely well-educated; nine different languages are spoken at our agency, including Indonesian, Greek, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese. That’s because the DC area is so diverse. We are certainly growing, and it has a lot to do with the fact that our carriers really believe in us.

We also have hired a small marketing

company and have spent a lot on social media.

The commitment we put forth on our digital platform has driven more and more content to our site. We are not getting transactional sales out of that, but we know that 75% of all insurance buyers go and study online before they buy. In that regard, we are far ahead of most of our competitors.

We make time every week to monitor our web presence, and we meet with our marketing company every two weeks. It’s really helped with planning, because we are not big enough to hire a full-time marketing person.

IBA: What are you doing to attract and grow your talent?

MAC: We are an extremely employee-centric agency, and that has worked well for retainment.

We try to be elastic and work with people when they need time off or have special events in their lives. We try to remember how we were treated by our former boss and how we ourselves would want to be treated if we were employees.

HOW HAS YOUR AGENCY GIVEN BACK TO YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY? We really have stopped advertising on a non-digital footprint, which means that we can then take those dollars that we save on advertising and invest them into our clients. We try to actively support our nonprofit clients’ events and projects – social services companies, private schools, charter schools.

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FAST FACTS Top 5 specializations Nonprofits

Property

Instruction

Government contractors

Small business/restaurants

Primary business units Commercial lines: 59%

Benefits: 32 %

“We are certainly growing, and it has a lot to do with the fact that our carriers really believe in us”

Personal lines: 9%

Year founded: 1916 Headquarters: Washington, DC, with a branch office in Annapolis, Md. Number of producers: 9

We like to think we promote from within.

We also commit 3% of our revenue every year toward hiring new producers.

Everyone in our agency who is either on the commercial side or personal side has their Certified Insurance Counselors [CIC] designation or is actively working to get it.

We budget for that, and it’s a big part of our culture. We know we might be training people

up to go on to somewhere else – and if that’s the case, we are glad we helped people along in their careers.

But we also have really good retention with our employees. We offer a robust 401k plan, and the two principals of HWP – myself and my partner, Ed Bonifant – have the same commission structure as our producers. That keeps us highly engaged.

Number of employees: 34 2014 premium volume: $7.2 million Number of clients in 2014: 1,200 Awards and recognition: Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (IIABA) Best Practices status

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FEATURES

HEALTHCARE

Through the looking glass The implementation of the Affordable Care Act has caused a radical shift in the healthcare marketplace and the way it’s insured SINCE THE Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, the healthcare industry has been moving toward a new delivery paradigm – and liability insurers have been racing to tailor their products to the new risks and exposures that continue to emerge.

It’s a bit of a moving target; healthcare exposures are rapidly evolving to adapt to the requirements of the ACA as millions of newly insured Americans flood the marketplace. But while things haven’t really matured yet, the Affordable Care Act is clearly changing the liability insurance industry across the board.

“It’s the most dynamic period that I’ve ever seen in the healthcare industry,” says Joshua Stein, president of US healthcare for IronHealth, Ironshore’s healthcare liability underwriting division. “And I think it’s one of the more dynamic areas of liability insurance out there.”

Unprecedented consolidation Thanks to the ACA, consolidation is the dominant trend in the healthcare sector.

“The main story is that healthcare organizations are doing everything they can to figure out and implement how best to make a margin in this new world,” Stein says. “Business models are changing – and consolidation is the name of the game across the sector.”

Hospitals are acquiring physicians, physician groups are creating accountable care organizations, and health insurance companies are acquiring hospitals – and vice versa. Even information technology companies and software firms are putting some skin in the game to find out if bigger is

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better in the post-ACA world.

As a result, deals among the nation’s biggest healthcare systems have created giants with multi-billion dollar annual revenues that rival some Fortune 500 companies, according to Modern Healthcare’s annual survey of hospital systems.

While business models vary, nearly all systems are adding more physicians to their payrolls; the same survey found that the number of doctors employed increased 39% last year to roughly 67,600 physicians.

One likely outcome of this phenomenon is that the family doctor will become an increasingly endangered species as small private practices merge with larger organizations.

“There just aren’t as many individual family practices these days as there used to be,” says Brad Rosgen, healthcare practice leader for Burns & Wilcox. “Larger organizations have a lot more negotiating power with private payers – in terms of how much money they can get reimbursed per unit of service they are delivering to their patients – than individual family offices. This has basically forced a lot of them to sell their practices to larger organizations.”

Interestingly, the same phenomenon also applies to the healthcare insurance sector.

“Every time you turn around, someone has acquired someone else – it’s a challenge to keep up with all of the consolidation on the retail and carrier side,” says Jordan Connelly, senior vice president of healthcare and Atlanta branch manager at Worldwide Facilities.

The rash of consolidation has definitely had an impact on the exposure profile of

TOP COVERAGES IN THE COMMERCIAL HEALTHCARE SECTOR > > > > >

Medical professional liability General liability Property coverages Products coverages Directors and officers liability, employee practices liability, and executive liability > Managed care errors and omissions > Cyber > Environmental insureds – as healthcare organizations suddenly get a lot bigger and start doing things they weren’t doing before, their exposure expands dramatically.

“Understanding the various drivers of a client’s exposure is certainly something we need to make certain we are on top of,” Stein says.

On the cusp of evolution Analysts are confident that the increasingly integrated healthcare marketplace will eventually develop a robust appetite for integrated insurance products – many of

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healthcare facilities and health insurers that are trying to better manage the quality of the outcomes they provide after they send patients home.

Pitching new products

“Healthcare organizations are doing everything they can to figure out and implement how best to make a margin in this new world” Joshua Stein, IronHealth which have already come online.

Things have not moved dramatically in that direction yet, “but they will,” Stein predicts. “And they will specifically in terms of integration of risk. A lot of these areas of exposure that we have specific products for will all begin to meld together.”

For now, however, the healthcare liability market is so profitable – and has so much excess capacity – that there isn’t much incentive to change buying habits.

“Hospitals still buy hospital professional liability insurance. Physicians still buy a physician professional liability policy.

Managed care companies still buy a managed care E&O policy,” Stein says. “We talk a lot about the business evolving on our end to a more integrated risk solution mentality, but

the buyers aren’t really focused on that yet.

It might take a while before the emergence of loss involving integrated exposures drives a change to the way buyers think about risk.”

Likewise, the insurance industry’s collective assumption that there would be a significant uptick in the amount of managed care exposures in the post-ACA marketplace does not appear to have manifested as of yet.

“We thought that Affordable Care Organizations were going to be a more dominant factor in the industry,” Rosgen says. “But we just haven’t seen that level of adoption, that level of exposure out there in the marketplace that we thought we would.”

What Rosgen is seeing, however, is an unprecedented level of case management – follow-through and follow-up – by proactive

In the meantime, the insurance industry is adapting to the shifting marketplace by continuing to introduce a variety of new products to both the personal lines and commercial liability markets.

Starr Companies, for example, is staying out of the ACA-regulated space by selling affordable, supplemental insurance solutions to defray out-of-pocket expenses incurred by the millions of individuals who are opting – mostly out of necessity – for insurance plans with super-high deductibles.

“What’s happening in the market in the US today is that you have a situation where more and more households have bought plans with high deductibles and copays … between $5,000 to $10,000,” says Jeffrey Herman, head of accident and health at Starr. “At the same time, almost 50% of households in the US have less than $10,000 of savings at any one time.”

Starr has found an opportunity within this conundrum. “We can provide a backdrop to those expenses and help prevent personal bankruptcies,” Herman says. “Still to this day, even with ACA, sickness is the biggest cause of personal bankruptcy in the US.” On the other end of the spectrum, IronHealth has capitalized on one of the most complex new market niches of the healthcare sector with a product that provides coverage for actual or alleged breach of the healthcare representation and warranty in a purchase and sale agreement involving a healthcare organization.

Medical billing issues stemming from the ACA present further opportunities for new products.

“When Obamacare was created, one of the things that was planned to help fund it was a significant crackdown on improper medical billing practices in regard to Medicare and Medicaid,” Rosgen explains.

This, in turn, has created a new uncovered exposure for market classes throughout the healthcare sector. Burns & Wilcox, for

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FEATURES

HEALTHCARE TOP HEALTHCARE LIABILITY BUSINESS CLASSES Hospitals: From rural hospitals in the middle of nowhere to the Mayo Clinic – and anything in between Senior healthcare facilities: Adult daycare, nursing homes, assisted living, etc.

Services for seniors: Anything that extends the amount of time seniors can live in their own home, such as home healthcare and Meals on Wheels Social and human services: Alcohol and drug treatment centers, homeless shelters, battered women shelters, and adoption and foster placement Allied healthcare and miscellaneous medical: Facilities that provide outpatient medical services, including healthcare agencies, med labs, pharmacies and imaging centers Life sciences and medical products: Anything from clinical trials to the manufacturing and distribution of medical products Individuals: Doctors, nurses, CRNAs, physician’s assistants and other trained healthcare professionals, covered individually or in groups Source: Brad Rosgen, Burns & Wilcox

example, is working with Lloyd’s of London on a new program that covers fines and penalties associated with improper billings.

“I would say that along with cyber and data privacy, errors and omissions for billing is a huge uncovered exposure right now, because it’s not something that a lot of people in the industry on the practitioner side think about,” Rosgen says. “I don’t think they realize you can actually purchase insurance for that.”

Trends, challenges and opportunities Network security and privacy issues are especially prevalent in the healthcare sector.

Yet surprisingly, says Connelly, there is still a lot of space to sell the coverage.

“The sophisticated buyers obviously have

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a separate policy someplace, but you would be surprised how many companies don’t have any coverage,” she says. “You look at some of the patient records that our clients hold – sometimes they have hundreds of thousands or even millions of records – and yet they still don’t carry any network security or privacy coverage. It’s just not on their radar.”

Connelly likens the situation to that of employee practices liability insurance 15 or so years ago, before some spectacular losses made it a mandatory coverage.

“We are getting to that point with network security and privacy, that this is not optional

dation in those as well,” Connelly says. “As markets that once wrote long-term care reenter the marketplace, the sector has become a great opportunity.”

Another new hot market is medical marijuana. “There are so many exposures when you talk about medical marijuana,” Connelly says. “The biggest loss in this class would obviously be a loss to the product.”

The same can be said for fertility clinics, which are also experiencing tremendous growth, especially on the West Coast. “Fertility clinics are different from your typical medical clinic,” Connelly explains. “You can’t just

“It’s a challenge to keep up with all of the consolidation on the retail and carrier side” Jordan Connelly, Worldwide Facilities anymore,” she says. “It’s been educational for many insureds, to overcome the ‘this can’t happen to me’ mentality.”

Technology integration is another huge driver in the healthcare sector – anything from a nurse practitioner diagnosing a condition over the phone and sending a prescription to a pharmacy, to virtual consultations with top physicians across the country.

Rosgen also has observed a transformation in the traditional family medical practice model. These days, clinics and urgent care centers are more likely to be staffed by nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants than actual physicians.

Meanwhile, scores of doctors have been returning to the old-fashioned practices of making house calls. “It’s a different model that provides for a potentially larger revenue stream because they can charge a bit more for house calls than an office visit, with less overhead,” Rosgen says.

Hot new markets Senior care is among the fastest-growing business classes in the healthcare sector; categories range from senior living and independent living facilities to adult daycare centers and skilled nursing homes.

“We are seeing long-term care facilities pop up left and right, and there is consoli-

have a typical PL/GL policy; you must have products liability in place” to cover fertilized human embryos, sperm and eggs.

Life sciences and medical products are yet another “interesting, innovative class of business, and a big niche because it is so cutting-edge,” Rosgen adds.

Insurance developed for this business class covers the entire product life cycle, from the inception of an idea for a new treatment, procedure or product all the way up through the proof-of-concept and research and development phases and into production, sales, manufacturing and distribution.

Covered products could range from a screw used for a joint replacement to pharmaceutical drugs to cutting-edge devices for surgery. “It’s a complicated specialty sector that’s harder to get into than the others,” Rosgen says.

The idea of filling gaps is common in the insurance industry, but in the healthcare sector, “the gaps are different everywhere, and also very time-specific,” Herman says.

“They [won’t be] the same in five years as they are now.”

Crafting products that fit an existing gap requires a culture of innovation, he says.

“It’s frankly difficult to be rapid, but I think it’s important, within the restraints of our regulatory structure, that we are always moving through that innovative curve.”

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PEOPLE

PRODUCER PROFILE

A walk on the wild side From nudist colonies to gentlemen’s clubs, Rupert Hall has carved out a niche by insuring risks that are a bit ... risqué

YOU MIGHT say Rupert Hall has seen it all. As the second-generation CEO and president of M.J. Hall and Company, he heads up a 42-year-old wholesale property/casualty brokerage firm headquartered in Stockton, Calif., that thrives in the hospitality sector by seeking out risks that don’t fit into typical underwriting guidelines – from nudist colonies to gentlemen’s clubs.

Hall also heads Golden Bear Insurance Company, a carrier founded by his father that specializes in commercial primary and excess liability business, for which M.J. Hall is the parent company.

It can all get a little chaotic at times.

“The two compete against each other, but we have done our best to keep them separate,” Hall says.

“I’m trying to get the lowest price on the brokerage side, while on the company side, I’m trying to get the best terms for the insurance company and our broker partners.”

Born into the business

“It was a lot of excitement in the Hall household – we were young kids, and all we could talk about was Evel Knievel”

Hall is no stranger to the insurance business. His father, Michael Hall, is a British expat who made his name writing aviation insurance and once insured the outsized risks of the world’s richest man – filmmaker and aviation magnate Howard Hughes – to the tune of about $300 million.

Hall was raised on stories about his father’s biggest client. At the time, Hughes was heavily invested in Las Vegas real estate and casinos. M.J. Hall & Co. came along for the ride, writing the liability for all of Hughes’ casinos for years – including Harvey’s Resort Hotel, the

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infamous casino in Stateline, Nev., that was blown up in 1980 by a cleverly built and virtually tamper-proof bomb, hidden inside a Xerox machine and rolled into the casino lobby by three men working for a disgruntled Hungarian millionaire gambler.

The hotel was evacuated in advance of the explosion, so “luckily no one was hurt, and we didn’t have the property insurance,” Hall says. “Our responsibility did not amount to an awful lot.”

Hall also remembers the day his dad came home and announced he was having to force Circus Circus (owned by Hughes at the time) to put nets under its trapeze acts.

“They didn’t want to do it, but they wouldn’t get their insurance if they didn’t place the nets,” Hall says.

M.J. Hall & Co. also placed the coverage when Evel Knievel attempted to jump over the water fountains at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas and broke every bone in his body.

“It was a lot of excitement in the Hall household – we were young kids, and all we could talk about was Evel Knievel,” Hall says. In the accident’s aftermath, claims rolled in from horrified bystanders who said they had suffered psychological damage from witnessing the wreck. It was a lesson learned the hard way. “We didn’t have those exclusions on policies back then,” Hall says.

Always something new Now that his father has retired (to become, as he jokingly puts it, “chairman of the bored”), Rupert

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DECENT EXPOSURE You would think the most interesting exposures in Hall’s hospitality niche would be at the casinos, gentlemen’s clubs and nudist colonies. But it turns out there’s plenty of action happening at the religious- and outdoor/wildlife-based retreat centers as well: Waterborne infections contracted by people who scraped themselves in hot tubs and shouldn’t have stayed in the water Hunters shooting other hunters by accident A mass shooting at a California retreat center Endless easement issues that erupt between neighbors at secluded resort properties As for those gentlemen’s clubs, Hall says, “They are more prevalent than you would think. Each community tends to have some element of one, whether it’s a large metro area or small rural town.”

Hall carries on the family legacy. And it’s far from boring, juggling risks that run the gamut from a bar for would-be cowboys, complete with mechanical bulls and barber chairs for doing shots, to the world’s biggest chunk of crystalline gold, which weighs 44 troy pounds and sits in a vault at a Northern California winery under 24-hour surveillance.

M.J. Hall & Co. still does plenty of casino business, too, but these days, the brokerage focuses more on small to mid-market resorts that are religious- or outdoor/wildlife-based, such as Zen Buddhist retreats, hunting lodges, hot springs resorts and nudist colonies, which would be nonstandard for most underwriters.

Through Golden Bear, they underwrite a broad spectrum of hospitality accounts, including leisure risks that have heavy injury potential, such as ziplines, trampoline parks, amusement rides and special events involving pyrotechnics.

And it looks like Golden Bear Insurance Company and M.J. Hall & Co. will stay in the family fold for a good long while. Hall’s sister operates the company’s Napa office and runs a winery on the side. His two oldest sons, meanwhile, have already interned at the branch office in San Francisco. This summer they each got their California brokers licenses – at 18 and 19 years old.

As for Hall, he still loves the challenge and variety of what he does: “Like the Navy SEALs say, ‘The only easy day was yesterday.’”

www.ibamag.com

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IBW INSURANCE BUSINESS WHOLESALE

E-NEWSLETTER  MOBILE  WEBSITE

Dedicated news for the E & S Wholesale Market

To subscribe, email lodia.tipon@keymedia.com insurancebusinesswholesale.com 54-55_Career Path-SUBBED.indd 54

18/09/2015 5:30:41 AM

PEOPLE

CAREER PATH

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING When David James left college, his lack of options led him to the insurance industry – and as his passion for insurance has grown, so has his business 2012 HITS $1 MILLION IN REVENUE Adding agents to his staff certainly paid off; James hit the $1 million mark just a few years after starting his business “Hitting $1 million in revenue was a big milestone that I was really looking forward to. In my head, if you had a business that was worth a million dollars, it was impressive. It was always something to strive for”

It didn’t take long before James grew tired of cold-calling. His solution was to aggressively recruit and hire more agents, effectively growing the business “I figured out I could only sell X amount by myself, even if I worked as many hours as I did with my persistence. There would always be a limit on how much I could sell if I didn’t expand”

2010

ADDS AGENTS TO HIS STAFF

2009 Starting a business isn’t easy, but James had tenacity on his side. After months of cold-calling, he finally landed his first contract: Safeco, which was owned by Liberty Mutual at the time

GETS HIS FIRST CONTRACT

2008 JOINS GREAT LAKES INDEPENDENT After briefly working at his father’s insurance company, James decided he wanted to transition from selling life insurance to working on the P&C side of the business. He found a position at Great Lakes Independent, which was run by a family friend, and for the next six months, shadowed agents there to learn everything he could about P&C insurance

2009 STARTS RIGHT CHOICE INSURANCE In April 2009, James decided it was time to branch out on his own. He started Right Choice Insurance and hired his girlfriend to be his assistant “I didn’t like … working under another agent. I thought there are better ways to do it”

2008 BECOMES A LICENSED LIFE INSURANCE BROKER

James spent a semester at Santa Barbara City College in Santa Barbara, Calif., but he soon realized college life just wasn’t for him

“I was not a very scholastic person. I was more interested in making money than learning about calculus”

2008

LEAVES SANTA BARBARA CITY COLLEGE

After leaving college, James earned his life insurance license on his 18th birthday. But it was a lack of options, rather than a passion for insurance, that led him there “I didn’t want to do manual labor, I didn’t have an education, and my family had been in insurance since the 1980s, so it was a natural progression for me”

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PEOPLE

OTHER LIFE

RIDING THE WAVE After a long day educating current clients and recruiting prospective ones, Sam Brown finds his favorite stress reliever atop a surfboard

TELL US ABOUT YOUR OTHER LIFE Email iba@keymedia.com

MOST PEOPLE might take up jogging or golf for some exercise or relief from a long day’s work, but Sam Brown prefers to find his way to the ocean. Brown, the vice president of Rancho Mesa Insurance Services in Santee, Calif., says surfing is not only his preferred form of exercise, but also an ideal complement to a hectic job.

“Unlike a lot of sports, surfing actually offers some relief and release from the stresses of the workday,” he says. “That’s what I’m after more than anything – regaining

1778

The year the first account of surfing was recorded, by Captain James Cook in Hawaii

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that balance.”

Brown started surfing around the same time he entered the insurance industry as a member of General Electric’s insurance division. In fact, it was a colleague from GE who introduced him to the sport.

“I really saw the merits of it,” Brown says. “It’s very rewarding to be on the water after a long day at work. It’s a nice sport because it doesn’t take a lot of organization – you can just go out on your own.”

13

The tallest wave, in feet, Brown has ever surfed

N

0

The number of sharks Brown has encountered while surfing

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We built our company anticipating the

NEW NORMAL AND BEYOND.

In the new normal, there is no normal. Healthcare is experiencing transformative change and needs adaptive, innovative solutions now more than ever. That’s why we combine a broad product suite with access to experienced leadership to address the evolving needs of our clients. It’s no wonder our healthcare division has grown well over 500% since inception. www.ironshore.com

The information contained herein is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any product or service.

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©2015 Ironshore

18/09/2015 5:31:51 AM

Expect big things in workers’ compensation. Expect to save a third of your clients 30% or more. Most classes approved, nationwide.

For information call (877) 234-4450 or visit auw.com/us. Š2015 Applied Underwriters, Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway company. Rated A+ (Superior) by A.M. Best.

Insurance plans protected U.S. Patent No. 7,908,157.

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