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Writing a Book with Jeremy Keating The PriceWriters Podcast Episode 46
19 Plays6 days ago
In this special World Book Day episode of the Price Writers Podcast, Catrin Townsend turns the tables on Jeremy Keating to explore the story behind his award-winning book, Price Writer: Nine-Step Method to Becoming a Highly Successful General Insurance Pricing Leader.
Jeremy shares why he felt compelled to write a practical leadership book for general insurance pricing professionals, not another maths-heavy textbook, but a hands-on guide to strategy, governance, data, modelling, deployment and team capability.
They discuss:
- Why most pricing roles are far more than just technical modelling
- How the Nine-Step framework was developed (and why it couldn’t be five!)
- The challenges of writing about modelling without using equations
- Why deployment sits at the heart of pricing success
- And the responsibility pricing leaders have to real end customers
Jeremy also reveals his unusual writing process (it involves running 10Ks), reflects on the book’s global reception and awards, and shares what he would update if he were writing it today.
If you’re a pricing professional, or aspiring to lead in insurance, this episode gives you insight into the thinking behind one of the most talked-about books in the field, and how to apply its ideas in your own career.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Price Writers Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
We are just making up as we go along.
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Price Writers Podcast with me, Ketlin Townsend and you, Jeremy Keating. Hello. Join us for a really special epi episode because this week is World Book Day. So if you have a child at a school who requires a costume, hopefully you already remembered.
00:00:27
Speaker
and If not, it's a bit late and I'm sorry. ah But if you've been listening to this podcast for a while or if you've been following Price Writers, you probably already know. that both Jeremy and I have written books. Jeremy's book is Pricewriter. Nine-step method to becoming a highly successful general insurance pricing leader.
The Journey of Writing 'Pricewriter'
00:00:46
Speaker
And has won awards. So he will be telling us a little bit about the process, how and why we wrote our books, and letting you in our few secrets and tips that we learned a long way.
00:01:00
Speaker
So we'll start with Jeremy. Jeremy, tell me bit about your book. What problem or tension in general insurance pricing made this book feel necessary to you? The thing that really got to me is that I like to read books and I enjoy reading a lot of nonfiction books, but I just felt there wasn't a book about the work that actually do. And sure, there are a couple of general insurance pricing books out there, but they are very technical and very mathsy. And I'm not criticizing that. That's fine if that's what you want and that's the bit of your job that you need to learn about.
00:01:32
Speaker
But most of my job, believe or not, is not doing hardcore maths. A lot of my job actually was organising a team of people into making models, writing software, writing code, doing data and cleaning it, and then deploying it live into the world and all the governance and procedures that go along with that. And also setting a price strategy for the team and dealing with lots of stakeholders.
Simplifying Complex Content for Readers
00:02:01
Speaker
I would say the amount of maths that I do as a qualified actuary is surprisingly little, actually. and compared to the amount of time I spend coding, organizing, developing plans, training and teaching the team, which was the vast majority of my role.
00:02:17
Speaker
And there just was no resource for me to actually do that. And since I came into this, teams have gone from being around three people to often being well over 100 people.
00:02:27
Speaker
So there's a lot of people now in this. And I thought to myself, well, if I was starting out today, what book would I want to read about how to do my job? Because if you work in IT t or you work in customer service or even claims, there are so many books you can read about how to do your job well.
00:02:44
Speaker
And not one person had ever written a book about how to do general insurance pricing well. Yeah, it's a big topic that... You're right. There just really isn't a material. There's either very statistics heavy undergraduate textbooks, maybe about modeling itself, but not much about the application of it.
00:03:03
Speaker
You're bringing know a lot of your own experience to the writing process, but how did your own perspective change as you started put the book together? I think what's interesting about writing a book is that it has to make you think about how you would explain parts of the process to people that perhaps you don't normally need to put into words.
00:03:24
Speaker
So when you work every day, you often sort of chat to people about the work, but actually sitting down and formally writing it something that you know someone is going to read is really quite different.
00:03:34
Speaker
And also it was very important to me that at least for the most part, it was interesting to read. Because it, you know, it's quite hard. Some of the subject is quite dull. Governance, you know, i know it's important, but even struggle to get really excited about it.
00:03:51
Speaker
So it is really about actually make it something that people would read, would find interesting to read and find, frankly, quite easy to read. So that's really the things that were hard, making it so that people just easily read it.
00:04:06
Speaker
And not just people that are technical work in pricing. It's been read a lot by people from outside of pricing that want to understand more about pricing. And what did you have to purposely leave out?
00:04:19
Speaker
Or what did you have to maybe unlearn in order to write this book with such honesty? So I read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, frankly, a long time ago. I've probably been in my mid-teens when I read it.
00:04:38
Speaker
And one of the things he said in his book is that every time you put an equation in, halves the number of people that will buy your book. So i have got not a single equation in the book, even though it's about general insurance pricing, which is a maths subject.
00:04:57
Speaker
And that was something that I just made a conscious effort right at the start to leave out.
Developing the Nine-Step Pricing Method
00:05:01
Speaker
Another thing I left out, which is probably a bit more controversial, is that there is almost no mention of the word actuary in the book. And that's because most people that work in pricing now are non-actuaries.
00:05:14
Speaker
I felt it was important that we made it accessible to non-actuaries and thus I avoided the word actuary. Price promoters now has become synonymous with the nine-step method. We're always talking about the nine-step pricing method.
00:05:30
Speaker
But there wasn't always going to be nine steps, was there? tell me a little bit about how you decided on the nine steps and the number of steps as well. And what other combinations did you try?
00:05:45
Speaker
Yeah, so I would actually have much rather produce a five-step method because that is the more common thing that you see in books. It's like, you don't want have nine steps. Nine makes it sound really complicated.
00:05:57
Speaker
i mean, even three steps would have been amazing, wouldn't it? So three steps to fantastic general insurance pricing, but it just didn't work like that. So I actually tried to do five, but it just really wouldn't have covered the big tapestry of the work that we really do.
00:06:12
Speaker
Particularly a pricing leader, there is so much that you need to be responsible for. Even if you break it down to say the most important stats, which in my mind are Probably governance, data and modelling, that doesn't really cover enough of the work. I know it's controversial to pick your top three, isn't it? it I'm sure there's someone out there going, strategy is so much more important.
00:06:38
Speaker
But yeah, so it just felt like it needed to be nine. Plus it makes a nice shape. And this is something people don't know, actually. The PriceWriter logo came first. It was only later that I realised I could retroactively fit it around nine steps.
00:06:53
Speaker
Wow. That is a good seeker. I didn't know that actually. Yeah. yeah that does third And in terms of of the nine steps that you chose, was there a step that you found very difficult to name or to decide between two different ideas?
00:07:11
Speaker
I think capability is the area I found hardest to put my finger on. And even then it remains a difficult one for me because in many ways, the overall nine steps are about your capability. But I did feel that there needed to be a step that was about managing a team and how to organize a team and how that team interacts with other teams inside of your department.
00:07:35
Speaker
So I felt that that needed its own box and i chose the name capability for it because that's a commonly used way that we describe upskilling people in pricing teams.
00:07:48
Speaker
But I think that one remains for me the one that is still somewhat elusive. And once you chose in your nine steps, which chapter or section was the hardest for you to write?
00:08:01
Speaker
whoa what That's a question half, isn't it? Wow. The chapter I think I found hardest to write is probably modeling because I didn't want it to be a maths-y book.
00:08:14
Speaker
But what do you say about modeling if you're not just going to talk about the maths behind modeling? So instead, I went down the road of deciding to talk about what makes a good model in terms of explainability and what we're really trying to aim for with modeling, because I think many people get in mind that what they want to provide is the best fitting model to the past data.
00:08:37
Speaker
And believe it or not, that isn't what we want. What we want is the model that best describes what we should price
Impact and Style of 'Pricewriter'
00:08:44
Speaker
in the future. And that is actually a different question and frankly, a much harder question to solve.
00:08:51
Speaker
And are there any choices, any good sentences, any structures that you're really proud of? The bit I actually really like is in the opening. And I pretty much straight away say, if you're a pricing leader and you can't tell someone what your strategy is in a simple way, you don't have one.
00:09:10
Speaker
And I've always just felt quite a bold opening to the book. I think it makes people sit up and go, oh, wow, this actually is going to be different to what I was expecting to read in a book like this. I feel it's strongest in two types of writing that I've done. There's the one where I do tell you the way to do something. So the strategy section particularly, it tells you a method for developing a price strategy, getting your entire...
00:09:38
Speaker
organization on board with that, getting it signed off by your board and senior management and then implementing it. So it's a proper how to and changing strategy is hard. Developing a good price strategy is hard. So this is really useful. And I quite like the parts of the book as well, where it's more discussion of how best to do things and suggestions about how you can develop the best thing to do.
00:10:03
Speaker
I like the fact that it's not just written to personal lines, general insurance, say P&C, which in fairness is where most people work, but it is written for people that work in commercial pricing or Lloyds of London, London markets and so on. i think everyone can pull something out of it.
00:10:23
Speaker
And I've actually been complimented by several people that work at Lloyd's to say, oh, I was really surprised that it wasn't just focused on yeah UK personal lines. It actually is really useful as a structure, as a nine steps, regardless of the line of business or the country that you work in.
00:10:40
Speaker
I definitely felt when I read it for the first time, I was like, oh, yeah, well, the nine steps are kind of obvious, but it was a structure that I'd never had put words to before.
00:10:52
Speaker
So although I probably could have given the general ideas of what was involved in pricing, the beauty of it for me is that it really gives a framework that people can hang ideas onto, and particularly the idea that All of these nine steps are super important. And if you overdevelop one at the expense of others, that actually just gives you more difficulties to try and bridge the gap between that one and the others as well. So seeing it as a interconnected system for me was just, it was so simple and I absolutely would never have thought about it myself.
00:11:34
Speaker
I really like that. actually It's funny because I i did think about calling it the nine step matrix as well, because it isn't something that's linear. Each step does connect to the other steps.
00:11:46
Speaker
The one for me that I think is most foundational is data. As someone who's run a pricing department, that is the thing that really worries me. Like, is the data actually correct? Because if your data has problems in it,
00:12:01
Speaker
a lot of other things just fall apart and things can really go wrong for you really quickly. But it's quite hard as somebody who's senior, and there can be two, three or more levels between you and the people actually doing the data work,
00:12:18
Speaker
To develop governance and controls over that is a different step, but it's just as important. If you want your data to be good, you have to put in place a governance mechanism to make that happen.
00:12:30
Speaker
So it's the way that these blocks fit together. And you're absolutely right. If you over govern, you can't actually really get
Global Influence and Industry Changes
00:12:38
Speaker
the data work done. You have limited resources, but if you under govern, you're going to run into problems. I think that deployment is potentially the most important.
00:12:49
Speaker
That's a bit controversial. that i Well, do you know, is intentional that deployment sits in the middle, actually, that I have done that on purpose. And in fact, you can see that deployment is the middle of the squares as well.
00:13:04
Speaker
And it is literally the middle chapter of the book. And I say at the start of the deployment chapter that nothing else matters if you can't get your rates into the world correctly and on time every time that you do it.
00:13:20
Speaker
Because that is actually what you're judged on. As a pricing leader, that is the thing that most people in the organization see. If it goes well, everyone is pleased, but people don't necessarily pat you on the back.
00:13:32
Speaker
But if it goes wrong... Lots of people feel it in the work that they do. So actually in that way, deployment is central, but it's interesting that I'm not sure it's one of the ones I would say, i don't know if it is the most important for me, but it's certainly the most public.
00:13:50
Speaker
Yeah. I think the word public is a really good one. wrong Definitely. I think that that's so good. But if readers could only take one idea from the book into their jobs,
00:14:02
Speaker
Which, not necessarily step, but what idea matters most? That's a really good question. I think the idea that I'm really trying to get across most in the book is that there are end customers that are affected by what you do.
00:14:21
Speaker
This is not an academic exercise. This is not doing maths for fun. This is not building models and making them into big complex machines because we enjoy doing that.
00:14:33
Speaker
I mean, we do, but actually there is a serious person at the end of it who receives a price for their insurance based on that. And really, they are not merely customers of the organisations. They are a customer of the work that we do.
00:14:48
Speaker
And we owe it to them to produce the best price that we can do. And I talk a lot about concepts like anti-selection. and ultimately, we often think of anti-selection as being a problem for the organization. But actually, if we get this wrong, insurance becomes unavailable for people. it becomes impossible for them to actually buy it and have that protection.
00:15:09
Speaker
So in that way, i think I really want to get across that we make these things for the customer.
00:15:17
Speaker
As usual on this podcast, we're always talking about not just what the book is about, but offering our insights and applying books to pricing day jobs. So tell me a little bit about how you hope people use this book, not just read it.
00:15:34
Speaker
I really want it to be something that no matter what level you are working in a pricing department, you find it to be something that's got information in it that you use at work.
00:15:48
Speaker
That's the important thing about it. It's not something that you read and just think, oh, that was nice. That was interesting. It's actually a mechanism that you can apply in your work day to day to do your job better.
00:16:01
Speaker
And finally, let's talk about the reaction to this book because there has been an absolutely huge global reaction to general insurance pricing book. I mean, wow.
00:16:15
Speaker
So tell me a little bit about not just your awards, but also what it meant to be second on the Amazon bestsellers list and what it means that your book is being recognized in now way.
00:16:29
Speaker
It was really amazing to win four awards and these weren't insurance awards, these were proper big. book awards that don't normally go to such a niche subject.
00:16:42
Speaker
And it's also sold a lot more copies than i expected. It's sold thousands of copies, which was quite a surprise actually. it has been read by people in insurance organizations outside of pricing who want to understand what pricing does. So I'm really glad that it's engaged with people outside of those areas.
00:17:01
Speaker
It just, it really did feel amazing to go and collect. awards for what is a very niche book. And actually it shows that I was right to keep the maths out, I think, because it shows how it was really accessible and that people can take away from it useful tips if they work in pricing outside of insurance, if they work in data science or really lots of other areas. So I've been very pleased to find that there was a big readership for it.
00:17:31
Speaker
Final question then, if you could annotate just one chapter with your current thinking, which section would that be and why?
00:17:43
Speaker
tricky, isn't it? Because the world does move on. So it's been two years since this book came out at start of March. Happy birthday, Professor to the book. I know. and it's been incredible that that two years has seen quite a bit of change in both the way that teens work.
00:18:00
Speaker
Teens are a lot bigger even now. I mean, I predicted that teens would be knocking 300 to by the end of the decade. There are some teens that are getting close to 300 even now So it is the case that teams are getting bigger and thinking does move on.
00:18:17
Speaker
I think I'd like to go back and work on the modeling chapter because although I think it was right to go about it as being about how to explain models, I think my thinking has moved on in that area and I could write a better chapter.
Innovative Writing Techniques
00:18:32
Speaker
And what was the process of writing a book for you? Tell us a bit about that. I think this is going to be pretty unusual. ah So people have said to me, oh, it really reads like you're talking to me. It reads conversational.
00:18:45
Speaker
And the reason is that I actually did talk it out loud when I was running. i I run three times a week and I would just record it as I went. And then I got home, transcribed it and edited it into the nice book that it is now.
00:19:01
Speaker
Wow. So this book is you running 10K and writing a book at the same time. but Yes. Here. No wonder he won four awards. that sasha All right.
Conclusion and Next Episode Preview
00:19:16
Speaker
Thank you so much, author, podcaster, and CEO, Jeremy Keating. Thank you for being on the PriceWriteers Booklist. Thank you for inviting me on. It's wonderful to be here. Well, I really enjoyed hearing all of the secrets about Pride Spriter, the book.
00:19:32
Speaker
And the next time we will return to hear more about a risky business.
00:19:48
Speaker
PriceWriters transforms pricing professionals into the most respected leaders in insurance. Find out more about our pricing capability audits by visiting pricewriters.com.