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Jeremy Keating on Outstanding Claims with the Price Writer Ep 14
34 Plays1 year ago
Join Jeremy on his first solo podcast adventure, where he delves into his personal journey and shares insights from his extensive experience in the field of general insurance pricing. Jeremy reflects on the pivotal moments of his career, from his initial fascination with pricing's critical role in business success to becoming the head of technical pricing for a global direct business. He discusses the challenges and triumphs of navigating through various pricing roles, the joy of immediate feedback loops, and the unique challenges faced in management transitions within the pricing domain. Including:
🎓 Jeremy's academic excellence at the University of Kent, bagging two awards.
🌍 Transition to a multinational insurer, discovering a passion for pricing, crucial for business and customer outcomes.
🔄 Appreciation for the immediate feedback loop in pricing, contrasting with the theoretical aspects of other statistical roles.
📈 Rising through the ranks to become the head of technical pricing for the global direct business, tackling various products.
🚀 Launching Price Writers to nurture and train pricing professionals.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Host's Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
Today is the first time my podcast will be a Jeremy Saylor adventure. It's about how I got where I am today and my mission and vision for general insurance pricing.
Academic Background and Career Beginnings
00:00:11
Speaker
I studied at the University of Kent and was fortunate to graduate with a first. I also received two awards, one for best exam performance in years two and three, the other for coming top of the faculty.
00:00:27
Speaker
So armed with this, I began working at a very large multinational insurer.
Why Pricing? A Unique Appeal
00:00:32
Speaker
I very quickly gravitated to pricing. I found the work that pricing involves to be what I was most interested in. This is because it's so integral to the business of an insurer. It's a strong determinant of whether the provider sells business
00:00:50
Speaker
profitably or not, and of the customer outcomes. When we set prices, we find out information about how they are received very quickly. There's a feedback loop that tells us how well we have done. At the time, the only other statistical roles in an insurance company were theoretical.
Impact of Pricing on Business Outcomes
00:01:12
Speaker
I mean, one could work extremely hard on building a very complicated model and come out with some numbers, but to be honest,
00:01:20
Speaker
They just weren't important to me. They wouldn't directly affect the customer or the organization. No one will ever know or care passionately about how accurate they are. For example, if you set the solvency levels for an insurer, unless the company goes insolvent, which should be very unlikely, you'll never really have any idea whether you did a good job or not.
00:01:46
Speaker
So pricing was and remains the most interesting to me. Although there are a lot of other roles for statisticians and data scientists in insurance now, such as improving customer journeys or optimizing processes.
Challenges and Joys in Pricing
00:02:04
Speaker
Pricing is great because you quickly start getting feedback on the sales, which can tell you a lot about the adequacy of the prices themselves. You also get claims information, although it takes longer to come through. It's a lot of fun putting the incomplete information together and deciding on the best courses of action. We can ask ourselves what we can do to make the prices better tomorrow.
00:02:32
Speaker
We know we are going to be open and selling policies tomorrow. So what can we do today to make those prices better as well as the longer term work to price better in a month, three months, six months and beyond.
Leadership and Consulting Experience
00:02:49
Speaker
I worked on a large range of products, which was a real benefit of being at a larger sharer.
00:02:56
Speaker
though at the time the pricing function was undeveloped and frankly, underappreciated. But then, so were data, IT analytics, and pretty much all the things we now know are essential. I worked on car, home, travel and pack, plus other areas of the business as well. I eventually became the head of technical pricing for the global direct business based in Paris.
00:03:22
Speaker
The Global Direct part was selling directly to consumers in multiple countries. I worked as an internal consultant, so I travelled to other countries and assisted them in developing their pricing and pricing functions, developing the skills and functions of other people. It was very much a role I enjoyed at the time. We had my daughter whilst we were living in Paris, which was a heck of an adventure on its own.
00:03:51
Speaker
After a few months, we began to feel like we wanted to be back near our families. With children, being away can be quite difficult, especially when you want to spend time with their grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins.
Career Shift to Contracting
00:04:07
Speaker
So we came back to the UK and I worked as a pricing leader for one of the large providers of car insurance. Although it was interesting, I was not challenged by the role. It was too easy.
00:04:20
Speaker
I had become used to a large stage with many products and running lots of projects with a large number of people at once. So I started contracting. I was lucky enough to do a contract with a wonderful organisation straight off. It built my confidence and there were great people. I worked a few other contracts but I began to want to do more.
00:04:44
Speaker
That is when I started to freelance instead.
Mission to Empower Pricing Professionals
00:04:48
Speaker
I enjoyed returning to multiple projects at once. It's more fun to have several projects and people I'm working with at the same time. Now I'm in a place where Price Writers is about training and events. I'm building the abilities of other people again. So that's how I got where I am today.
00:05:10
Speaker
The next question is, what is my mission for general insurance pricing? My mission is that every person who works in general insurance pricing should be supported to develop to the absolute limit of their ambition. So if you are someone who wants to be the best analyst, then we can support you and provide you with what you need to make that happen. And the same, if you want to develop to be a manager,
00:05:39
Speaker
or beyond to head of pricing, director, or even up to the top of a business. While we need to develop people in all steps in that career, I also see there are points in that journey when they especially need help, particularly at transitions that can be difficult. For example, when people first join a pricing team and when they first become managers of other people,
00:06:05
Speaker
I see these two as some of the most difficult transitions in pricing.
Transition to Management: Challenges
00:06:10
Speaker
When people join us, there is often a sharp learning curve because pricing is so different to roles, for example, in data science, data engineering or IT.
00:06:23
Speaker
They need to know about insurance, for example, regulation, anti-selection, moral hazards, products, claims, and so much more. When we initially move people into management roles, it can also be quite a difficult transition. I found it very difficult to go from being responsible only for my own work to a management role where people look to me for leadership. I also found that there was no good support for me to develop.
00:06:52
Speaker
Every existing management training was generic and focused on people managers in unrelated roles, not about roles where we need to be the technical leaders with expert knowledge that we are expected to impart while also dealing with the organization and management side as well. I think that's an area that a lot of people struggle with.
00:07:16
Speaker
There are not enough skilled people through all the management roles. And we see management roles can sit vacant while firms struggle to recruit. Often people are driven forward into these roles because they want to advance, but then they find they don't enjoy them. Some return to analyst level while others leave for contracting or to be tech or technical leader roles.
00:07:44
Speaker
When we don't have our good people enjoying management and advancement, then it makes it difficult for us to operate truly effective teams that offer opportunity for all.
Vision for Pricing Leaders
00:07:56
Speaker
I want pricing leaders to be the most successful and highly valued leaders in all of General Insurance, and I don't want people to struggle like I did.
00:08:08
Speaker
I think training should be relevant to us and the types of people we are. So much of the existing material is for totally different roles or for highly extroverted people. This makes no sense because introverted managers are some of the best and most of the world's richest people are introverts.
00:08:29
Speaker
When people are given management training, it is often the same training that's given to other departments. Set fakers on how to run a team in a call centre or sales area or perhaps claims. There's nothing wrong with those roles obviously, but they are fundamentally different work in a different environment with different goals, tactics and strategies.
00:08:55
Speaker
I can remember being in a role play training on management. The entire situation was based on how I would behave with a wayward employee in a customer service team, which is fine, but there was nothing about it that connected with my issues. It also took an us versus them approach to the employee and management dynamic. I just didn't relate to it and it wasn't what I needed in my work.
00:09:24
Speaker
So I want every pricing leader to reach the level that matches their ambition. And I don't want anyone to give up early. I don't want anyone to feel that their potential is unfulfilled. This is why we run Price Writers and it's why we're offering our three monthly master classes. We had over 100 pricing professionals join us for the last one, which was rated four and a half stars by those who came. It was on price strategy.
00:09:54
Speaker
and we'll be doing more in future. One a month until we've worked through all of the nine steps in the price rights method. Then we'll start over again.
Achieving the 'Goldilocks Price'
00:10:04
Speaker
The final question is what is my vision for general insurance pricing? I want every team to be staffed with highly skilled and knowledgeable prices so that every pricing person and every pricing team are highly regarded, meet their objectives and achieve their sales and loss ratio targets. That every organization retains great people in pricing and we don't lose them to other work
00:10:33
Speaker
We value them and they are well rewarded too. My vision for general insurance pricing is also that every customer should be charged the exact right price. That price is not the same for every organisation or at every point in time. It's the price that's just right for that customer, for your product, your company at that time. It's forever changing. I term it the Goldilocks price.
00:11:01
Speaker
I want every company to be able to charge the right price without difficulties in gaining enough staff or data or the knowledge or perhaps struggling with a pricing platform that doesn't do what they need. With all pricing lined up with the goals, values and strategy of the organization. That's my vision for general insurance pricing.
00:11:26
Speaker
So that's it from me today. We'll be back next time with the regular format in an interview with a pricing leader. Have a great day. Bye.