Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Amit Patel on Outstanding Claims with the Price Writer Ep 13
32 Plays1 year ago
We have Amit Patel, Associate Director at Willis Towers Watson on Outstanding Claims. We discuss the impact of inflation on personal and commercial lines insurance, the nuances of mutual vs. proprietary companies and consultancy roles, and Amit shares his comprehensive journey and invaluable insights. Including:
🎯 Customer-Centric Focus: Emphasizing the importance of a customer-focused approach amidst technological advancements and regulatory shifts.
🌍 Market Dynamics: Discussion on understanding market trends, adapting to customer needs, and leveraging technology for better service delivery.
🌈 Diversity & Inclusion: Highlighting the importance of attracting diverse talent and fostering an inclusive environment in the insurance industry.
🔮 Future Vision: Amit shares his vision for the future of general insurance pricing, advocating for innovation balanced with a strong focus on customer value.
Recommended
Transcript
Impact of Inflation on Insurance Premiums
00:00:00
Speaker
Inflation is a massive thing in the personalized markets on home and motor insurance. It's been there for some time. We see people's premiums increasing from an insurer's perspective or a client's perspective. It's understanding the drivers of that cost and actually tracking those, monitoring those, having your pricing up to date, speaking to the claims teams.
Emmett's Career Journey
00:00:23
Speaker
Hello, Emmett, and welcome to The Shy. Hi, Jeremy.
00:00:28
Speaker
Nice to see you again, thanks for having me on. That's right, it's great to see you as well. So, the first thing I want to ask you is, how did you get where you are today? So, I'd like to say that it was all planned, I suppose, from an early age, but the truth is I actually fell into insurance after a brief stint in an accounting firm. Yeah, in short, I think it's down to good fortune
00:00:56
Speaker
been given a lot of support as well in my career. So in my early years, it was managers and mentors, I suppose. And then I think in more recent years, it's been kind of coaches that I've been speaking to that helped me navigate my career. Definitely quite a bit of luck. But yeah, to give you a brief account, I suppose of kind of my few years in the industry.
Customer Value at NFE Mutual
00:01:18
Speaker
Yeah, it started off in this accountancy firm that I was telling you about. So working in audit, and that was after my
00:01:26
Speaker
degree in economics and my bachelor's in my master's in finance and management. So I was working there for less than a year and it clearly wasn't for me. I thought it was but it turns out that you weren't really using any of the kind of statistical techniques or some of the maths and the finance that I particularly enjoyed
00:01:49
Speaker
And I wanted to kind of use more of that and try to make an impact on the work that I did or potentially for the customer. So yes, I then applied for a few jobs and I was lucky enough to get a position in GI pricing team at NFE mutual. So I think that's where we met and our paths crossed for the first time. I think that's kind of where I belonged. I actually enjoyed my time there.
00:02:15
Speaker
Being a mutual, it was focusing on the customer. It was on value and fairness. And I studied there, qualified there, and I was working across personal and commercial lines. So again, really good place to learn. And I think I stayed there nine years in total. A lot of different positions.
00:02:37
Speaker
and working in different lines of business. And I think it was alongside a large prancing transformation as well at the time. So a new target operating model growing the team. So a lot of opportunity and possibilities. So my final role there at the end of the nine years was leading their technical pricing team across all lines of business.
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah, good work, good responsibility, and trying to produce a good price for the customer, I suppose.
Technical Pricing and Global Relations
00:03:08
Speaker
So I moved on then from there to e-shore, so a personal lines insurer in the UK, and I was working with a technical pricing team, so on the motor side. And there it was working through the JIP consideration, so the regulation that came down into the industry.
00:03:30
Speaker
That move was great. Really enjoyed my time there. I was there for two years. Got good exposure to aggregator markets, fast pace pricing, and using some of the newer techniques as well that everyone's heard of in the market. So an opportunity to use those and see if you can gain any value in that space. Really good
00:03:54
Speaker
couple of years there. And then I was actually asked to move over to Willis Towers, Watson, WTW, where I am now. And I've been there for a year or so. I think just some of my time, I think, worked in the market on both personal and commercial lines. I think at the minute, I'm really enjoying my role. It's predominantly on the commercial line space and specialty insurance. And it allows me to work
00:04:22
Speaker
with clients in the UK, but also across the globe and work with a really diverse team here at WTW as well. So ones that are considered to be experts in the industry. Really enjoyed my time. That's a great overview.
Comparing Work Environments
00:04:41
Speaker
What would you say is the biggest difference between being a mutual and then a proprietary company and then going to a consultancy?
00:04:54
Speaker
So it's been very different, I would say. Clearly a mutual, you've been there as well. You are focusing on the customer, you're focusing on value, profits, shareholders, things like that. They don't matter as much, I suppose, in a mutual right. The whole company sets up accordingly.
00:05:16
Speaker
Having that foundation was really valuable to me, actually, because it really brought me into the industry. I felt I was doing something that was good for the customer and good for the industry. I think then moving to your traditional insurer setup, it's a little different. So yes, you're focusing on the customer and you want to produce a product that is of value, ideally, but
00:05:46
Speaker
the focus does change somewhat to shareholder value and your company targets, your company growth. So it's a little different. And there was a bit of a sea change, I suppose, there when I moved in terms of my mindset, at least or at least understanding what the company really valued and wanted. Then moving to a consultancy is very different, actually. We're
00:06:15
Speaker
working with a number of clients, obviously in the industry, and it's very much centered around a project. Some of those are large transformations and improving the bottom line, so to speak, but some of them are just centered around their operations and how they can be a little bit more efficient, how they can do things a little differently. Yes, my role now is really understanding what the client
00:06:45
Speaker
would like, what they want, what their objectives are, I suppose, personally, and also the company itself, and trying to help them achieve those. So it's very different. So I think, yes, I'm looking less on number of policyholders, number of policies written, those kind of metrics that we're so used to looking at. And now it's more focused on project by project basis. So very different.
Staying Customer-Focused Amid Changes
00:07:13
Speaker
What do you think we should all be doing to improve those customer outcomes? It's something that I talk about actually on a weekly basis with some of my clients, specifically on the person line space. It's quite tough. The market is moving quite quickly. There's so many new technologies and techniques that are available that insurers use nowadays.
00:07:42
Speaker
And the worry that I have, and it comes into the vision piece that I'll chat about later, is that we embed and deploy these technologies, but actually we lose sight of what the customer actually needs and what service the customer actually requires. So I think coming back to your question, I think
00:08:09
Speaker
we need to have that lens when we think about a transformation or deploying a technology or investing in your kind of department or your skillset and think about what would the customer really like to purchase and what would produce value. So I think that's something we can't lose sight of really. Yeah, absolutely. And what would you say we should be doing on the commercial side as well?
Challenges in Commercial Insurance
00:08:41
Speaker
So in the commercial space, it's obviously very different. It's so broad, isn't it? Depending on which lines of business you're talking about. But in there, there is the traditional pricing space where you'll be working in your pricing models, whether it be technical or retail, and trying to improve those, trying to use better data and get a better prediction, I suppose, of cost.
00:09:08
Speaker
But on the other side, there is the element of which market are you operating in and what is challenging that particular market, so that line of business, so to speak. The challenges that a commercial property insurer is going to face are incredibly different to a marine
00:09:30
Speaker
specialty market for instance and it's kind of keeping pace with and keeping up to date with what they really require and what the challenges are for those clients, those businesses in that sector. So it is very different but I think that is the important aspect which is what are they struggling with and understanding that market incredibly well is something that will be useful.
00:09:54
Speaker
What would you say are the things that on that side people are struggling with, the things that if they ignore, it's really to that parallel at the moment?
Inflation Monitoring and Pricing Strategies
00:10:05
Speaker
It's kind of similar things that we're hearing across multiple, in multiple areas and markets. Inflation is massive. It's affecting the personal lines players as well as our commercial players and to different levels and I think at different rates.
00:10:24
Speaker
yet inflation is a massive thing in the personalized markets on home and motor insurance. It's been there for some time. We see people's premiums increasing from an insurer's perspective or a client's perspective. It's understanding the drivers of that cost and actually tracking those, monitoring those, having your pricing, up to date, speaking to the claims teams, departments, looking at parts inflation. Before, I suppose,
00:10:55
Speaker
maybe a few years ago, insurers would do that, but it would be very simple in nature. It would just be looking at inflation, looking at index over time and thinking about where your prices need to be in years time or 18 months. You wouldn't really go into the individual components that is affecting that inflation.
00:11:14
Speaker
A lot of personalized players are now doing that. They're investing in that, really getting to grips with what is causing inflation and then lining up the teams as well, the functional teams underneath to be able to join the dots. I think commercial lines, we're seeing that, but to a lesser extent. A lot of other conversations that I am having at the minute is the fact that, yes, you may not have seen it to the same extent right now. However, it's going to filter through.
00:11:44
Speaker
you're looking at fleet insurance or commercial property insurance, you are seeing inflation, you are going to see inflation, but it's not coming up in any of your dashboards or your monitoring that you're doing at the minute. So perhaps you need to focus on that going forward because you're likely to get caught out. So that's probably one of the biggest topics I would have thought and then regulation is coming through as well, which is very different from market to market.
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Enhancing Industry Quality and Diversity
00:12:14
Speaker
What would you say is your mission for general insurance pricing? I've had some time to think about this. I think my mission is quite simple and I've distilled it down to two kind of areas.
00:12:30
Speaker
Firstly, it's definitely to help the industry. In the position that I'm in, being able to talk to many insurers and many clients, I think my role is working with those insurers to transform their technical teams. That could be pricing, could be claims or reserving. It doesn't necessarily matter, but it's to help them service their customers better.
00:12:53
Speaker
It was developed in my time, and if you're mutual, as I've mentioned, but the importance of that customer or the business is critical and understanding that in your product creation or your pricing or even your claim service. I think it's incredibly important for them to not lose sight of that. So what I see my role is trying to help them do that, if I can, and to help the industry reputation, I suppose, because it's been tarnished over recent years.
00:13:24
Speaker
and just trying to turn that tide would be one of my aims and mission. So how can I do that when speaking to these insurers and clients? My second one is actually I've been fortunate in the position that I am now where I can try and bring in good talent, diverse talent into the industry. So
00:13:44
Speaker
whether that's recruitment internally or actually more so helping my clients. So less the companies but more the individuals. So if I'm speaking to a head of pricing or a commercial director or a technical pricing manager, how can I
00:14:01
Speaker
help them whilst working with them in a particular project or contract? How can I help them not only meet their objectives, but actually help their teams or help them with a problem that they might be experiencing? Yes, it's arm's length. It's not my own company, but actually I see that as an important element that I could hopefully help them with. So I think those are the two. So the first one is trying to help the industry with the work that I do.
00:14:30
Speaker
bringing it back to the customer. But then secondly is to try and help the individuals and recruit people into the industry that would be, yeah, great benefit. Yeah. And what do we need doing to attract a wider pool of people into what we do?
Need for Diverse Talents
00:14:50
Speaker
So there is a lot of good work that's happened in the last few years, I suppose, even when I think back to recruiting my previous companies.
00:14:59
Speaker
I think when I first joined the industry, it was heavily weighted towards the traditional math, maths, economic, statistical backgrounds. And don't get me wrong, that's incredibly important. But I think more now it's turning our attention to the other roles and the other disciplines that are going to be of use. Thinking about the teams that I've been in, it's not just those maths and stats backgrounds, it's the data engineers
00:15:29
Speaker
It's people with law degrees and disciplines for policy pricing and wording. It's customer kind of specialists, I suppose, or product engineers. So it's very varied. And I think the industry has made a stride in moving in that kind of particular area. But I think there's more to be done. So as our teams and insurers evolve,
00:15:56
Speaker
I think that we need to be more open to different and diverse talent coming in. Yeah, we definitely need to be attracting people with different backgrounds. You mentioned law, but obviously compliance is becoming bigger, more important in pricing as are areas like the IT and the deployment side.
00:16:17
Speaker
and the skills and dealing with other teams, communications and so on. So it's becoming a much wider discipline than it once was. And on that note, what would you say is your vision for the future of general insurance pricing?
Embracing Technology with Customer-Centricity
00:16:34
Speaker
So it's a hard question to answer, isn't it? We don't know what the industry is going to look like in five to 10 years, but you know, we've talked about a few today, haven't we?
00:16:45
Speaker
We've got machine learning coming in, new techniques being used by insurers. We've got vast amounts of data that's now available, whether it be direct from the customer or third party data that's available. We've got the threat of these kind of taking jobs potentially. There's discussion of how some of these techniques and stages in a pricing process that
00:17:10
Speaker
could be done via a model so to speak and require less human interaction. I mean what I would say to that is that when I started in this there was three of us in pricing, the company's workforce got about 150 just in pricing and there's ancillary people in the data side as wow it's probably knocking 300 people that do the job that we used to
00:17:37
Speaker
And that's against the backdrop of an explosion of automation tools of better data and so on. So actually, I tend to think we are going to get more efficient at what we do, but we're going to still be needing more and more people as well. Well, I think so, yeah. I was going to come on to the fact that you're right. We've got these techniques available and they are just techniques and quite honestly,
00:18:01
Speaker
A lot of it requires a lot of judgment and experience. You want to deploy these models on their own, just like that. You won't go to market without exercising a lot of judgment, I suppose. So you're right. I think I'm in a similar, I've had a similar experience where I joined a company and there was a team of 12. And when I left the company, it was 80 or so. That increases in kind of headcount and people that you require.
00:18:31
Speaker
Yes, you've got these themes in the background, you've got customers wanting to interact with insurers differently as well. But I think my vision, I suppose, in light of that would be to, yes, adopt these technologies, move the market, the market will evolve and change just like any other industry. However, don't lose sight of the customer.
00:18:59
Speaker
It comes back to that. How can we use this technology to produce customer products, so customer centric products that can be useful, that are going to drive value? How can we ensure that you bring that efficiency, operational efficiency, but don't lose the talent that you really need? I think it'd be really tough to see people with that experience
00:19:30
Speaker
I'm not working in insurance just because you've got a nice set of models that you can automatically refresh and deploy. I don't think that's the answer. Yeah. I think the future would be, yeah. Use new techniques, evolve in the market, create new products that are going to be of use, but make sure you still focus on the customer. I think that's the main thing.
00:19:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's very customers focused vision, which is a good thing. I mean, my own vision is every customer paying the exact right price. What would you say is the biggest mistake that people out there are making that you would want to help them to correct?
Balancing Tech Advancements with Core Operations
00:20:16
Speaker
That's a tough one. I would say
00:20:20
Speaker
Things that I've experienced in the last year are that companies are investing heavily. They're not just in technology, new policy admin systems, or new pricing structures, but they're underneath the scenes. They're investing heavily. They're recruiting people. The biggest mistake I see is
00:20:49
Speaker
that they're trying to move too fast. So I see insurers spending a lot of money having ambitious targets of when this new product or new system is going to be operational and then what they can do on the back of that. And they're trying to do this at the same time as their BAU activities.
00:21:11
Speaker
keeping the company running, servicing the customers, writing the same level of business. And what they're doing is overloading the existing staff on what is actually capable. And what I've seen is that you see the company struggle. So not only their business suffering because they can't meet the demand and what's required, or they put things on hold because
00:21:41
Speaker
Oh, we're going to have this new system in place next year and actually we'll be able to do it then. Let's not do it now. You kind of take the eye off the ball with your BAU work and servicing your customers whilst also investing heavily in this new system or structure. And you're asking your people to manage both. And I find that very, I find that common actually in the marketplace where it's essentially an arms race to try and get the structure in place and invest
00:22:08
Speaker
but you lose sight of what you're doing day to day. So I think I've seen that, yeah, I've seen that across a few clients that I've worked with and that's probably the biggest mistake I've seen so far.
00:22:22
Speaker
Yeah, getting the basics right and making sure there's resource there to do what you need to do. It's good to push into the future. We have to do that. We also have to be aware there are people trying to do the job at the same time as we need to resource base in it. Yeah. So I was just going to say, just to give an example of that, I see pricing teams investing heavily in their pricing capability.
00:22:47
Speaker
Let's produce lots of models. Let's have this automation in place. But then I don't see pricing teams doing the basic monitoring that you would expect to do. And sometimes it's the simple conventional methods that
00:23:06
Speaker
You would ordinarily have done five, ten years ago that are not being done now because you're relying on a model or a process and actually it's just bringing it back to the basics. It would be really useful, you know.
Advanced Modeling vs. Thorough Analysis
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah I totally agree. I think analysis is taking a back seat to the modelling and I think that's not, I think we've moved too far into the modelling direction and actually you can go a long way with quality analysis and we need to be doing that because that's your early warning system as well as your way of navigating the business in a good direction and
00:23:44
Speaker
hitting your target. So the modelling's good, but I had Graham Ross on recently and he said people should be asking themselves every day, I'm going to be opening up to sell insurance tomorrow, can I have better prices tomorrow? Not in three months time or six months time, however long it takes us to build a model, what can I be doing to make the prices better tomorrow?
00:24:07
Speaker
And I thought it was a really good way of putting it actually. And I do think people should be keeping the analysis there. Yes, the modelling, but get the analysis right as well. Yeah, absolutely. Amit, is there anything you would like to add? No, just thank you very much for having me on, Jeremy. It's been great speaking to you today. You're very welcome. It's brilliant to catch up with you as well. You have a good rest of your week. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. Bye, Jeremy.
00:24:36
Speaker
Cheers, bye bye.